Best-Paying Jobs in Singapore (2008)

privileged, the term 'farmer scholar' is an oxymoron. The dichotomy of farmers vs scholars is a concept and as with all concept, it comes with a set of fixed definitions. A scholar isn't a farmer. And a farmer isn't a scholar.

A scholar refers to those who studied in top US/UK universities on government scholarships after their A levels.

This means losers who got some local study award on the bill of any of the governmental agencies are farmers. Farmers also refer to local university graduates and non graduates who work in the ministries and any of the stat boards.

Within scholars, there are different ranks and grades. Yes, all scholars are those who attend top overseas institutions. But within the group, there are further segregated into more tiers. There is the top tier of scholars who are PSC's top scholars- who receive the SAF Overseas Scholarship (SAFOS), SPF Overseas Scholarship (SPFOS) and Overseas Merit Scholarship (OMS). These are three classes of scholars are the group from which the President's Scholar is chosen. In other words, one can't be a President's Scholar and not be from one of these three groups of scholars.

Then there are stat board scholars who are 2nd tier.

Within the top tier of scholarships, the rank is as follows.

President's Scholarship cum SAFOS
President's Scholarship cum SPFOS or cum OMS
SAFOS
SPFOS
OMS

This information is widely known among scholars and scholarship applicants, anyone who's ever been in the inner circle or tried applying for a scholarship.

First if the Ronaldo dude really makes $15K at 28, that's really good salary, and significantly above what most other Singaporeans make at 28, although it isn't a gauge on his salary in the longer term until he's 60.

Second, there are SAFOS and OMS that are not AO, and lets say I know for a fact that they're not regarded as lesser scholars than SAFOS and OMS AOs by both organisation and co-workers. Also, scholars do not take the AO interview immediately upon return. Majority of them get in at some point of their careers.

Dear insider, how many of these top and second -tier scholars will eventually make it to the Administrative Service? Is there a huge diff in pay between AOs and non-AOs?

insider,

how about the unwritten ranking of rank n file?

bachelor's entry w/o scholarship upgrading to masters/phd with n w/o scholarship?

Like labrador said, many of top tier scholars (not including those who has left) are AOs. There are second tier scholars who are AOs but far fewer. Stat board scholars simply do not get the same level of exposure or relevant jobscope as compared to PSC scholars. I'm sure you know that ministries formulate policies, stat boards carry them out. There isn't any policy formulation done at stat board level. No one really wants a stat board scholarship, just ask any top scholarship applicant. But many do take it up after being rejected for a top PSC scholarship. And it pays for an expensive 4-year education so they take what they can get. I dare say it's a well known fact that almost all stat board scholars are PSC-SAFOS and PSC-OMS rejectees. (meaning they applied for PSC and stat boards and didn't get PSC)

Why would anyone with brains turn down an OMS for a stat board when the OMS scholar will be the stat board scholar's boss?

All stat boards come under the authority of a ministry. Eg MTI governs STB, EDB. Mindef governs DSTA. MOF governs MAS and so on. The stat boards execute menially the policies formulated by their parent ministry (done by the PSC OMS and SAFOS scholars there). So essentially, a stat board scholar is doing the sai kang with no exposure to policy making.

Stat boards are also totally independent of each other. Eg when a MAS staff wants to move to say, PUB, he resigns from MAS and then reapplies to PUB. There is no fluid movement for people in stat boards.

PSC-OMS scholars are rotated at the highest level of policy making in various ministries and they switch between ministries fluidly. Their scholar friends they befriended in JC and Yale are stuck at the stat board, with no lateral movement.Do note that the description above for staff of ministries ONLY apply to high fliers like OMS scholars. Their regular rank and file don't have. I'm just explaining the set-up of ministries and stat boards to you. The privilege doesn't extend to any tom, dick or harry.

To your second question, the pay between the two isn't even comparable.

Fair points but a rather myopic view.

Firstly, there are certainly strong stat boards like EDB and MAS which are traditionally more attractive to scholarship applicants as a stint there would make you more marketable to the private sector. Secondly, AOs who spend all their years in Ministries are generally not so attractive to private sector employers like MNCs and banks because they don't really have client contact or marketable skills which can be picked up at the economic stat boards (with the exception of maybe investment banking and management consulting, which some ex-AOs have broke into but at junior levels). So I wouldn't say that "all stat board scholars are PSC-SAFOS and PSC-OMS rejectees." There are very good reasons why some very good scholarship candidates prefer to work at strong stat boards than in Ministry HQs.

Also, if you are planning to work in the private sector, who really cares about whether you are SAFOS, OMS, SPFOS??? All this stratification is created by the Singapore Government to attract many academically-excellent but impressionable 18-year olds who want scholarship prestige but later regret and break bond. What matters in the pte sector is performance and networks. There are many smart people from our local universities who are doing just as well if not better in terms of pay and prospects than SAFOS/SPFOS/OMS. And some SAFOS/SPFOS/OMS scholars may find that they have to start from scratch if they decide to leave the shelter of the Govt and join pte sector since they don't have relevant experience.

So bottom-line is, don't apply for scholarship just because you want to seek prestige and money. Apply only if you think it is something you would enjoy doing. Be clear on what you want to do in life. If you are not clear, then keep your options open. Our local universities are great institutions and you don't have to be a scholar to succeed in Singapore. If you are smart, you can work anywhere globally and not get stuck in Singapore by a bond. :-)

Hahaha insider2, speak for yourself. Myopic? I know the place of a person who utters the view you just said.

Insider was answering questions to Admin Service and scholarship, so your bit about private sector while inaccurate was irrelevant. But irrelevance is not normally discerned by intellectually incompetent people.

What you said was complete BS because MAS is the stat board with the highest number of bond breakers. You have no idea who you're talking to, so I suggest you desist from excreting more BS in public.

EDB is one of the better stat board scholarships to end up with, thats true. But i don't think you knew that when you said that. you're so obviously an outsider looking through a glass window peering in with no first hand info. You said that only by postulating that EDB may have more interactions with private sector companies which is true, because it canvases for investments in foreign countries.

At the end of the day, the facts that Insider provided remains.

EDB, like all the other stat boards does the menial execution work. There is no policy formulation and access is at the lowest level.

Next, it's patently untrue that OMS being in ministries are at a disadvantage compared to the puny stat board scholars. I know large numbers of OMS scholars who were headhunted by consultancies like Oliver Wyman and McKinsey even before they complete their bond. It's no secret that AOs and OMS scholars are regularly poached or receive offers. This is because even private sector companies are acutely aware of where the valued harvest is. So they never bother looking at stat board.

Fact is, many high value jobs like investment bankers and consultants are not hired on years of relevant experience, but on brains, aptitude, personality and guts. That's why they're frequently hired straight out of Ivy League undergrad schools even without a year of experience. The same way they target policy-crunching OMS.

This is something your myopia failed to let you see.

You also work "anywhere globally" in the public sector. *rolls eyes* I know more than 40 OMS (no, they're not even with MFA) all over the world, that's not including the Tied MFA scholars who are lower rung than OMS obviously.

Your attempt to compare farmers and claim they're "doing just as well" is also quite a joke, since no one talked about private sector in the conversation. Moreover, it's no secret that the top large private companies (not SMEs) and peak of professional fields here are helmed and captained by top Singaporean foreign grads. The Law Society's president is from Oxford, not NUS. And he represents the private sector of law. So really, I don't have to go into the Attorney General or the Solicitor General ha. We all know full well that DBS isn't the only private company with a CEO who graduated from a top university.

I'd also challenge you on your claim that PSC scholars "start from scratch" in the private sector. I just had tea last week with a SAFOS ex-BG who's now holding a higher rank than farmers his age who worked in the same private company he is in the last 10 years. And I know countless more examples that I know you're crapping out of your arse.

ALL stat board scholars are PSC OMS rejects. This is a fact. Accept it and you will be free.

So there's huge pay gap... No wonder the non-AO scholars are called farmer scholars!
Another curious question: There're in total about 400 AOs or thereabout. How many fresh ones get into the Service every year? What's the attrition rate? Or is it the case that once you made it in, you're set to become at least a million-earning deputy sec?

Insider and labrador, it's so obvious both of you are AOs. Before your heads hurt from the swelling, I'd like to remind you it's thanks to your well-crafted policies that we're the first country to crash into recession. With your "brains, aptitude, personality and guts", you designed far-sighted policies from your ivory towers that so far led to debacle after debacle whether directly or indirectly, from the MSK disappearance and the otherwise-excellent EMA pricing formula to the town councils' Lehman-linked but otherwise excellent investment performance and the public transport up-and-down pricing. You and your overpaid colleagues - yeah, we all know you hit $300k/yr at age 32 - can blame the lesser scholars at stat boards for poor execution, but with your excellent IQ and EQ, shouldn't you have the foresight and oversight to pre-empt failures at the bottom? I bet much of the humongous losses by GIC and Temasek can also be attributed to the highly sought after and always headhunted ex-AOs working as MDs in the 2 firms.
Yes, you better blame your political masters for the boohoos before they start blaming you when GRCs are lost.

The civil service is separate from politics. Our job is to ensure peasants and lesser mortals to work hard for Singapore either by stick or carrot and to encourage mutation in their offsprings to create elites which are usually found among elites parents.
Mutation is why some offsprings of peasants and lesser mortals can end up as elites which has puzzled many elites who are not schooled in Darwin theory of evolution.