Burning Question on Fresh Grad Salary

[aliciaheartsfti]

Does anyone here know if a person graduate with a degree, eg. NTU Chinese Studies degree, but previously graduated from poly with a totally unrelated diploma, eg. Life Science course, and decided to work in a job that's related to the poly diploma but not the degree, eg. Lab technician, will the person get a degree holder's pay or a diploma holder's pay?

Anyone with prior experience on this or is/was from HR dept, please help clear my doubts on this. Would be of great help, thanks

Originally Posted by aliciaheartsfti

Does anyone here know if a person graduate with a degree, eg. NTU Chinese Studies degree, but previously graduated from poly with a totally unrelated diploma, eg. Life Science course, and decided to work in a job that's related to the poly diploma but not the degree, eg. Lab technician, will the person get a degree holder's pay or a diploma holder's pay?

Anyone with prior experience on this or is/was from HR dept, please help clear my doubts on this. Would be of great help, thanks

Lab techs are typical diploma jobs. Proper degree grads in life science do not join as technicians.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Lab techs are typical diploma jobs. Proper degree grads in life science do not join as technicians.

Above is correct, degree grads join as researcher or analyst level. Technicians are normally for diploma fresh grads or nitec with 3-5 years exp.

However because ts degree is complete irrelevant to life science, he will not be able to join as researcher. Technician got chance as the diploma is relevant provided the employer willing to overlook his 'useless' degree or ts remove it from the cv.

[aliciaheartsfti]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Lab techs are typical diploma jobs. Proper degree grads in life science do not join as technicians.

Then what if it's a science related job and it accepts both degree & diploma holders to join, and the person with an Arts degree and a life science diploma joins, will the person still get a diploma holder's pay?

[aliciaheartsfti]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Above is correct, degree grads join as researcher or analyst level. Technicians are normally for diploma fresh grads or nitec with 3-5 years exp.

However because ts degree is complete irrelevant to life science, he will not be able to join as researcher. Technician got chance as the diploma is relevant provided the employer willing to overlook his 'useless' degree or ts remove it from the cv.

I see, thanks for the info. With the 'useless' degree in the life science job, will the starting pay definitely be standard diploma holder's pay? Sorry, I'm a bit noob on this since I have yet to graduate.

Companies will only pay up to the job level position. So:

Company hiring for life science degree holders - Will not hire you at all.

Company hiring for life science diploma holders - Will hire you and pay dip salary. Which is about 1.8k.

You think of it from a company point of view. Pay you extra for useless degree for what? Actually, will not even hire you because you have shown that you are not really interested in life science.

Why will anyone take Chinese Studies and expect to find a job outside of teaching/tutoring is beyond me.

Originally Posted by aliciaheartsfti

Then what if it's a science related job and it accepts both degree & diploma holders to join, and the person with an Arts degree and a life science diploma joins, will the person still get a diploma holder's pay?

Irrelevant comparison. A company will not hire an Arts degree for a lab life science deg position in the first place.

Your questions are coming across as very naive. Either that or you are skirting the point hoping someone will tell you what you want to hear. Let me put it in plain words your possible career outcomes:

1) Chances of getting a diploma level life science position paying 1.8-2.2k: Low to Moderate

2) Chances of getting a degree level life science position paying 3k+: Zero

3) Chances of getting a degree level public sector general position paying 3k+: Very Low

4) Chances of getting a degree level public sector teaching position paying 3k+: Moderate

5) Chances of getting a degree level private sector SME general position paying 2.2-2.5k+: Low

6) Chances of getting a degree level private sector MNC general position paying 3-4k+: Almost zero

As previous poster said, it is common sense that you should only take up such language cert if your career aspiration is in teaching. Otherwise this degree makes you even worse than a private uni / technical poly grad.

[aliciaheartsfti]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Companies will only pay up to the job level position. So:

Company hiring for life science degree holders - Will not hire you at all.

Company hiring for life science diploma holders - Will hire you and pay dip salary. Which is about 1.8k.

You think of it from a company point of view. Pay you extra for useless degree for what? Actually, will not even hire you because you have shown that you are not really interested in life science.

Why will anyone take Chinese Studies and expect to find a job outside of teaching/tutoring is beyond me.

I see, thanks for going straight to the point. You'll be surprised to see many people in Chinese Studies right now who don't want to go into the teaching sector. Well, I am still interested in science, just that my poly results nor my financial status allows me to go for a science degree. Thanks for the info anyway

[aliciaheartsfti]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Irrelevant comparison. A company will not hire an Arts degree for a lab life science deg position in the first place.

Your questions are coming across as very naive. Either that or you are skirting the point hoping someone will tell you what you want to hear. Let me put it in plain words your possible career outcomes:

1) Chances of getting a diploma level life science position paying 1.8-2.2k: Low to Moderate

2) Chances of getting a degree level life science position paying 3k+: Zero

3) Chances of getting a degree level public sector general position paying 3k+: Very Low

4) Chances of getting a degree level public sector teaching position paying 3k+: Moderate

5) Chances of getting a degree level private sector SME general position paying 2.2-2.5k+: Low

6) Chances of getting a degree level private sector MNC general position paying 3-4k+: Almost zero

As previous poster said, it is common sense that you should only take up such language cert if your career aspiration is in teaching. Otherwise this degree makes you even worse than a private uni / technical poly grad.

I don't mean a life science degree position, but rather a job that accepts both dip and deg holders.
Yeah, you can consider me as naive since I have yet to actually join the workforce. I'm only asking these questions in order to get the right info to persuade the people around me telling me things opposite from you've said. Thanks for the input anyways

Originally Posted by aliciaheartsfti

I don't mean a life science degree position, but rather a job that accepts both dip and deg holders.
Yeah, you can consider me as naive since I have yet to actually join the workforce. I'm only asking these questions in order to get the right info to persuade the people around me telling me things opposite from you've said. Thanks for the input anyways

Are you a freshie just joined NTU few months ago in 2017? If yes, maybe it's time to reconsider your options if you have no interest in academia or teaching work.

I'm not from NTU Chinese studies , but I assume most undergrads would have had at least intern or part time work experience. I'm very surprised that "people around you" would actually think they have good prospects in getting degree type of 3k+ pay outside teaching in the private sector, much less a specialized industry like life science.

When I was in FASS in NUS studying economics, psychology and sociology etc. many of my peers including myself already knew our most important shot was getting either a public sector research role or teaching. If we don't get selected then already resigned to competing for scraps in jobs like sales, admin, operations, marketing, event organization etc.

I would imagine Chinese studies to be even much worse in terms of market value and your faculty/class seem to have people who are so detached from the job market that they actually think they will get into technical degree job on the same pay!?!?