Negotiating salary for NUS Officer position (Malaysian)
 

Hello,

I just accepted an offer as an officer in an academic department at NUS, and currently we are in the middle of salary negotiation process. I am Malaysian and I have bachelor's and master's degrees, both from US universities. I also have a couple years of working experience.

I am not well-versed on pay scale in Singapore, so I would appreciate it if you could give me some advice on what would be an acceptable salary, after taking living cost into account? I had 3.5K as my expected salary when I was applying for the position, but it is still negotiable.

Thank you!

If you already accepted the offer, isn't it too late to talk about pay now? How much was the offer?

I think 3.5k is too high for officer level unless you have relevant experience. 3.5k is the low end of Assistant Manager already (very inflated titles in NUS) or close to max for officer.

I'm quite confused with the ranks actually. The position name is "officer", but they also indicated that it is "manager-level".

They have only sent me an informal offer, so there is still time to negotiate until they release an official offer.

It is normal to give an informal offer and wait for you to accept before sending the official offer documents in most recruitment. If you already accept it, it is considered very rude to go back now and ask for more. It is within your right to do so, but be careful of the repercussion.

As for "manager-level" I'm not sure what it means, but anyone who has a basic degree w/o experience joins them as officer, so it is equal to private sector of fresh grad executive. If that is what they mean by "manager-level", then I think is highly misleading.

One thing is NUS admin office has highly inflated job titles. Even their Director pay and responsibility is more like a manager in the outside world. I cannot imagine how an officer can be considered manager.

This OP also very funny, NUS offer cannot even give your 3.5k and anyhow smoke you that this is a manager and you actually half-believe them. If everybody innocent like you I think recruiter job very easy.

What's so funny about it? The minimum salary to get an EP is 3.3K, so 3.5K is still within a reasonable reach, even though it's on the high end of NUS officers salaries.

Different poster. I think poster on top was referring to the fact that he was offered only 3.3k, lower than most fresh grads and still believe that he is a manager in NUS.

Out of curiosity -- what is the average salary of fresh grads in SG? I'm from Indonesia and currently planning to get a job there.

if I am fresh grad, want to work in NUS as hostel officer

what is the reasonable pay?