Transition of career
 

Serving as a regular in RSAF for 8 yrs (age 28) abt 61k pa. I decide to quit. Exploring different trades and searching for a job now, with a electronic engineering degree and relevant financial certs such as m5,m9,m9a certs.

Having work in engineering line for these yrs, I would say tat these field is rather stable, versatile and broad, considering some with gd work life balance. You got no worries even when u kanna retrenchment, coz there are plenty of engineering job in the industries, with your skills and exp and if u are willing to accept minor pay cut, you would be resurrect.

However, I kinda lost passion with this field as the ceiling and increment is usually quite demoralizing and in someways most engineering pay dun justified for the effort and ot that u have contributed. Having means of friends in HR of engineering firm and friends in credit card industry, I know exactly how much most engineers (with technical job scope) is drawing even some with 10 to 20 yrs exp. very few could make it to the 7k to 10k markfor mthly salary (or above 130k pa) even u have 20 yrs exp. And if you are drawing salary such as 8 to 10k in engineering field, u are likely some high flyers holding major responsibilities (No offense for pple in engineering field.) As I understand most of them choose to remain in these field is becoz of the passion and pros that i mentioned in the previous paragraph.

So for now, considering I am very green in the society, I wish to transit into something different field that do with soft skills or sales regardless whether is relevant to engineering, this is a critical turning point of mine but kinda lost now.

Tot of going to banking sales industry thru referrer. No doubt you may be drawing high pay as sky is the limit for sales industry, but i know the work life balance is usually quite tedious regardless u have been working for 2 - 3 yrs. I dun mind sacrifice made for first 2 yrs, but if is a prolonged damage, I dun tink I could take it esp if I plan to have kids in 2 yrs time. One curiosity to note, i realize usually those banking sales person are youngsters, so where does all those mid ages or older sales person who is in banking sales stream into? branch manager or insurance etc.? is there any long term prospect in banking sales lines? can anyone in relevant industries enlighten me whether should I take up banking sales industry as my career?

Or is there other field that with my qualification or related interest of mine i can explore into? shipping, oil rig, it cooperate sales etc? I dun mind a pay cut as long is not too much... but I willing to strive and wish to see some results in 2 yrs time that i could climb and the pay is justified in effort contributed. I hope that u all could share urs exp truthfully in these thread. thanks.

First things first, you've got a fun ride milking good money from SAF, now is sort of like payback time if you go back to pte sector.

First of all since you are into "work life balance" ala SAF style I suggest you not waste time going to banking sales. Most of the people who start off with consumer banking at the entry level are prepared to work 80-90 hour work weeks and burn their weekends to meet KPI. You will loose out very badly compared to the youngsters who ready to cheong. These jobs are brutal, no hit KPI within 6 months out you go.

As for things like branch manager, private banking, corporate banking etc. it is impossible for a SAF guy with no useful experience at all to jump inside like that. Insurance is just insurance, mostly commission, no sales = no pay. You want to take the plunge better make sure you have savings to last you at least 1 year without pay.

As for not taking too much pay cut, I think you need to be realistic. Although you are drawing 61k now, you specifically want to get out of engineering into a new field to have a better furture.

That means in the eyes of any employer you are just a newbie with no relevant skills at all. Why would anyone pay you more than a fresh grad of 3-3.2k? A typical average fresh grad will take at least 4-5 years to hit >5k salary, I don't think your 2 year horizon to get back your current SAF pay is realistic.

since u no relevant exp outside of engineering, not possible to get a pay near 61k pa for normal jobs.

the only way is go 100% sales job like insurance, propertyagent, mlm, security brokering etc. where your bonus is measure by the sales you bring in.

Thanks for the truthful feedback. I am glad to hear all these. Anyway having quit SAF is becoz the vocation I am in, doesn't recognize a degree at all . Therefore, I quit to sought for another job to make my degree useful, if not in the first place I would not have pursue a degree.... Anymore feedback and advise. I need more truthful opinion and advise so that I could sort out my mindset of streaming and transiting to which field. If someone who was being trapped in the same scenario as mine before, it will be great to share urs perspective here :)

Additionally, I would still wish someone could ans my qns. "One curiosity to note, i realize usually those banking sales person are youngsters, so where does all those mid ages or older sales person who previously is in banking sales stream into? branch manager or insurance etc.? is there any long term prospect in banking sales lines?"

bro, I suggest you stay in air force better, to climb back the ladder to reach 61k pa with zero cooperate experience is gonna be a very difficult and a long process.

Finance is definitely where the big money lies, but it is not for the faint hearted. esp when you are talking about having kids in 2 year's time..

just curious
 

May I check with you your vocation. Afe? Your salary seems like it's abit low for a degree holder that is regular for such a long time. 61k pa is with or without bonus?

Did you get they pay you for your degree or did u do the part time degree?

Anyway I would say just try go for different kind of interviews. Find out more about the job and see how it goes.

Its not easy to find a job now also..sometimes what u want is not what u'll get also.

Everyline has prospects, including the engineering field you want to get out of. It's kind of a pointless question if you ask me.

You will not see many middle age people doing consumer banking sales, the hours are too long and the competition too brutal. Most middle age fellows can't expend the time & energy to meet the KPIs and fight with the youngsters.

Youngsters do not cheong for the sake of staying in consumer banking, they usually do it hoping they will be the lucky few who make it to PB/IB/CB/Trading etc. where the big bucks lie. Maybe 1-2% will succeed, another 10% get some minor promotions to non-managerial levels like "Manager" & "AVP" after a few years and out of that an even smaller number will make it to manager level like "VP" & "SVP".

The rest will either move into more corporate back office roles or do sales in another industry after 3-5 years of going nowhere. Everyone will burn out sooner or later if it's just crazy hours without the big money in sight.

It is an extremely bad idea to go into banking sales hoping to have work life balance to start a family. I suggest you stay put in SAF, your pay is now way beyond what your skills are worth which is good. Why take 40% paycut to join some place and work like a cow to gamble on that tiny hope that you will make it big just as you are about to move on to the most important phase of your life?

If you leave SAF after 1-2 years & realise you belong to the majority 90% who cannot find the big bucks in banking, I can more or less confirm chop guarantee you will not get a job outside that pays 61k pa. with just a rudimentary retail level kind of sales experience.

Yes, AFE. Anyway, too late. Its my last day since 3rd May. Lol. Yup I do agree I made a very daring move. But no choice, when u know very well you can't see yourself staying in SAF in 10-20 yrs time. So its better to move out of the industry fast before I am tied down with more commitments and afterall this vocation is a diploma job. The only way to get your degree be part of my salary component is to be emplace to officer (ME4). However, the criteria of getting one emplaced for the log career path to be a ME4 is unless you are the top 5% of top performer in the sqn and the degree is local recognized uni with relevant field which means somehow you need to be "eyeball". If not, the nature progression of career path for AFE can be quite slow if you are a average player. I am just a average player with a overseas uni degree.

Hence, back to work in SAF is definitely irreversible for my current situation. To be frank, I am ok to start off as a fresh grad. As normal degree fresh grad is ard age 24 for JC path, age 25 or 26 for poly path. Becoz I choose to settle down my marriage before I leave SAF, thats y ended up at age 28 now. So just take it as I am 2 - 3 yrs behind a normal fresh grad. However, I need more expertise and opinions from you guys that you all have accumulated throughout urs career which you best fit my situation and I can explore into. something to do with soft skills or sales that you guys out there are having gd prospect and gd job nature. Keen to share?

Zooq,

U want high salary and u want work-life balance........ yr expectation is too idealistic in Singapore. U r better off in Army.

That's too bad, you should have done ur homework before quiting on impulse.

Anyway ur analysis is incorrect. You cannot just compare urself 28 yrs old with a local uni grad at 25 yrs old & conclude u r just 3 years behind. You are actually super disadvantage here.

Your degree is just a pte PT overseas one. This ranks the lowest as roughly MNCs & public service will take the prestigious overseas & local unis first. This is followed by the local big companies who take mostly the local unis and full time pte uni with corp exp.

Your PT degree together with the stigma of u wasting 8 years in the SAF will likely relegate u to competing for the SME jobs or leftover jobs with local big companies. You cannot expect to find a job that pays well (61k p.a.), have a good career & fast progression and also work life balance. Your profile will not be able to secure an Associate level job in banks, at best you can only go for those officer type jobs that sell credit cards, HDB loans, insurance etc that pay pittance and work crazy hours.

The typical SME pays 25-30k for a freshie, provides little learning & development opportunity and definitely 99% of them dont believe in work life balance.

Good lunck, ur gonna need it.

WTF?

You actually quit airforce without even getting a job interview or know what to do? Even if there is a job that pay well + work life balance + good prospect, you also cannot get in. Bro, you are in serious trouble…

61K PA package based on a 15mth package works out to over 4k per month. Im surprised that the airforce have adjusted its pay package to be so good for MDES specialist scheme (ME3 and below).

During my time its was called the PP1 and PP2 scheme where the salary is way too low which cause a serious outflow of regulars to take a chance in the private sector, Im one of them.

To be honest, I really struggle for sometime and quite depressed seeing all my friends doing quite well compared to me. If I have 61k pay package last time, I would definately stay on and think twice before leaving.

ME4 is where everybody is aiming to be but it's super competitive due to the current poor job market.

Yar I also think the pay for ME is very good nowadays. But our TS here want to get a job that is good for him to start family, got very good future prospect and yet pay him close to 61k. I really cant think of any company that will pay this sort of money to someone no relevant experience and spend 8 years in RSAF as specialist.

To be honest...
 

Congrats to you TS.. Really a wrong move...

Actually u can try taking up contract jobs in banks back office
Those like 3mths to 1 year kind. They pay quite well as they don't give u benefits that perm staff are entitled to.

Got a friend no banking experience. Change from marine industry, currently getting 3.5k pm.
But job stability might be an issue la. U got to start from these little opportunities.

All is not lost. I think working as sales is exchanging your time for money. You see what kind of life u wan to lead then you decide for yourself. Sometimes if u divide the dollar per hour earned you might have a better picture how much u are actually paid. :)

@ZoOq : You screwed up big time resigning without back up, no questions about it. But what is done is done, time to move on.

For a start if you are into banking sales, join as a contractor doing sales on credit cards, insurance, personal credit etc. These low level jobs are outsourced by the banks, so don't waste your time applying under each individual bank website. Instead go register and upload your CV to a few big recruitment agents who can contract you to the banks.

Some big names you can google yourself:
1. Addecco
2. Talent2
3. Kelly Commercial
4. Recruit Express
5. Achieve
6. Manpower
7. GMP

As for prospect, the contract job itself has limited development or advancement opportunity, but if you are good there is always a chance after a few years the banks themselves are willing to offer you employment instead of working under the agent.

On pay matters, 61k is a big no no, but with luck maybe you can get a package that is 35k – 40k inclusive of basic and all bonuses/incentives. But as contractors of course the benefit like insurance, medical, leave etc will be pathetic compared to what RSAF can offer.

Hope this helps.

Now pay so good?

When I join DBS 2 years ago on contract doing branch sales pay was not that good - got a pte degree from Curtin and joined them on contract. Basic pay only 2.2k and quarterly incentive 1.5 to 2k, annual all-in confirm below 35k.

if the money is no good no matter what you choose, do what you love since you got nothing to lose.

hey it rhymes - it must be good advice!

2k incentive quarterly? meaning u got around 8k of incentive annually right?
after few years the basic pay should be much better?

While reading some of the threads here, I realised that there is this misconception that private sector pays better if you work hard. This is not true because

1) You don't necessary earn much more in private sector if you calculate by per hour.

2) It is NOT TRUE that you can succeed in private sector even with lousy results. Whether you are in the private or public sector, the keyword is network.

3) Private sector generally don't pay well unless you are talking about banking, sales & marketing or oil&gas. Otherwise your salary progression is more or less same as public sector and the overall package evens out in the long run.

4) Some skills are more worthless than the others. For logistics, no matter where you go, it is hard to break the 10K mark unless you go into management, which then leads to point 2 - network.

5) It is not easy to jump in the private sector too. If you are lousy, it is obvious.

[QUOTE=Unregistered;36574]While reading some of the threads here, I realised that there is this misconception that private sector pays better if you work hard. [QUOTE]

Reading through the post I don't see anyone say the private sector pays better. In fact all the bros here are advising him to stay put in RSAF and tell him it was bad mistake to quit & jump into pte sector now.

I don't see anyone here say the private sector pays better. In fact all the bros here are advising him to stay put in RSAF and tell him it was bad mistake to quit & jump into pte sector now.