Originally Posted by Mike (Post 83751)

Have my stint in the above companies. The hire and fire culture in American drives result better than Japanese and European. It is outcome based. The Japanese and European are more relationship base which means more on playing who know who and who is your backers.

Hence if you like a stable life, go for public sectors and don't ask much about performance base because it again more of whether your boss likes you or not. Typical yes man culture. If you like to prove yourself, go for American which now the hire and fire will let you know where you are.

Originally Posted by Unregistered (Post 83750)

Hey there, I am the above poster with 12 years in a Japanese environment.

I'm actually sort of struggling to understand where you are getting at. From what I gather, you already know certain aspects of working with a Japanese company and actually don't mind as you never have the intention to stay long.

So your plan is to go there for a few years and treat it as an overseas military boot camp and use that to get a better career prospect somewhere else? Am I understanding this correctly? Because I must say this is a very strange way of career planning.

I know of fresh grads who started off in my companies and moved on elsewhere after a while. Some are successful, some less so. But that is either because a better offer came along or there were some push factors (usually is low pay & promotion), but never heard of a grad who purposely planned to joined us with the intention of staying a few years and then using that experience to get a better career somewhere else.

In terms of your general question of whether the experience is valuable - it depends. What does valuable mean? Valuable against what?

I would say definitely you will learn something of value for your personal development, like I say the process and documentation of Japanese companies is top notch so being marinated in it day and night you will certainly acquire useful knowledge and discipline as well.

If your definition of valuable is will your experience make you a hot potato in the market with multiple organizations in public/private sector headhunting you with big salaries, then I'm afraid I will have to categorically say no. Of course I am assuming you are a typical average engineer, super smart people have ways to outshine the rest no matter where they are anyway.

Perhaps let me illustrate what usually happens to a typical young engineer who left after a while in a Japanese company. Upon joining, you spend the first few weeks familiarizing on the basics. After that, you go to Japan for a few months of company training (just generalizing, not all companies do that).

You will then be assigned to a specific project and meet your manager and colleagues in that project. For the next 3 years in that project, you will be assigned by your work-stream team supervisor to look after a particular process in his work-stream.

When the project is completed, you will be re-assigned. Sometimes you get to go Japan for additional training again. At this stage, you should be earning about 2.8-3k barring a serious recession. Normally what happens is that they will try to re-assign you in a similar type of work-stream but handling a different sub process. Usually in the 4th or 5th year in your 2nd assignment, you will be promoted 1 level up, for e.g. Engineer I to Engineer II.

Let's assume then after 5 years of service you decide to leave. You should be making 3.4-3.5k at this stage as an Engineer II. You will then have 2 options:

1. Join the government. If your experience is deemed fully relevant, they will either offer you the "correct" offer a 5 year engineer should get (from what I hear in the market it seems to be around 5k+ for a 2nd class honours type) or they mark up from your existing salary maybe offering you ~4k. I'm not very sure how this works in government as I hear conflicting stories from ex-colleagues who went down this path.

Government is naturally more secure and has a closer work culture, but based on a few friends who joined BCA and CPG, the basic idea I got was they didn't really get any chance to put what they learn in the past to use. Having said that, they seemed pretty contented to coast along till retirement.

2. Join the private sector. The private sector usually just add another 15-20% on top your current drawn. So you can expect an offer of around 3.7-4k probably as some sort of experienced engineer or senior technical operations executive.

Whether your experience will be put to good use in this case will really depend on what role you take up and which company it is. So it will be very varied and hard to generalize. For e.g. I went to engineering consultancy as a project manager (albeit at a more senior level then you are planning) and found my experience and skillsets to be very useful. But I have also friends who had private sector disaster stories to share.

So there you have it. Think carefully and no matter what choice, go in with eyes open.

Originally Posted by Unregistered (Post 83764)

Hi there, thank you so much for your detailed reply once again. Regarding your question on what my plan is and whether it is like an overseas boot camp, I wouldn't exactly deny that. But there are a few reasons as to why I am looking at it that way.

Firstly, I have no doubts that my current grades can get me a better pay(1k-1.5k more) in Singapore in a GLC or in the private sector, than that in Japan. I am not showing off at all, but that is how it is when it comes to GLCs.

However, in Japan, the pay grows at a rate of 40-50 dollars a year and apparently will stay like that for the next 3-5 years(I know of another Singaporean working there) . This means that at the end of 3-5 years my pay will be around 2700-2800(Not including bonuses which is quite high for that company and other ot pay), which we all know is very low compared to what I can be receiving in Singapore by then.

And that is why I am wondering, whether it is even worth going if eventually, after going through those Cons you listed working in Japan including the low pay, and coming to Singapore just to receive back a 4k+-ish pay(which I would have been able to receive almost right from the start had I been in Singapore), where that experience is not valued.

Maybe one simple way of saying it is like... You decide to forgo a higher paying average job to gain experience but when you return with that experience, it is not as valued as you think it is and you realised you would have been better off had you just started off with that higher paying job right from the start. Or else why would I bother forgoing it in the first place when I know I am able to get a much better pay in Singapore? I will be forgoing benefits such as CPF during that 3-5years as well (if my pay is high in Japan I wouldn't take this into consideration but it is not). That is why I think of it as some sort of a overseas boot camp in a way.

I have no intention and expectations to be a hot potato with a high salary using that 3-5years experience in Japan, but I was at least hoping that it could translate to a better than average pay and prospects as compared to working in Singapore from the start. I might be self deluding myself by thinking that way, and so that was the very reason I came onto this forum to ask for 2nd opinions to make sure. So please don't take it the wrong way if I come across as arrogant or whatsoever, I do not have the intention to do so.

I am really glad that I can read more of such opinions from experienced individuals like you and they are very valuable. Once again thank you for your reply!

Originally Posted by Unregistered (Post 83782)

No worries, I wasn't offended at you being arrogant or anything like that. Just wanted to have some clarity where you are coming from as I realize over the years terms like valuable, career prospects, good pay etc. means very different things to different people.

Now that you have elaborated on this, I can with confidence tell you that the Japanese company is not suitable for your career aspirations. The way I see it with your qualifications, you should be drawing around 5k odd after 5 years if you had joined either public or private mnc sector. In order for the "boot camp" to be worth the sacrifice, you will need an offer of at least 7k right after leaving.

Considering that you will likely exit the Japanese company on the low end of 3k onwards after 5 years, it is very very unlikely any company or government organization is going to make an offer that is more than double your last drawn especially when you are only considered a junior engineer involved in perhaps 2 overseas projects.

That's my opinion of the whole thing. All the best and hope you get a good offer.

Originally Posted by Unregistered (Post 83784)

Thank you for your opinion once again. I will take it into consideration while deciding.

I have another question for you or anyone else here who has experience regarding changing of jobs.

If I were to return and state my previous pay, am I allowed to state a rough value of my previous pay by including the bonuses and ot that I received(which can be advantageous as the company provides higher than normal bonuses), or must i state the basic pay no matter what(which greatly puts me at a disadvantage in this case as we all know how much i am receiving, when it comes to negotiating pay)?
How far am i able to 'inflate' my salary using all these, am i able to also include what i got from overseas deployments? Do they need some proof?

The above question might seem stupid but I have no experience in this so I would just like to clarify.

Also, if I decide to forgo the idea that i should receive better than average pay and prospects, how much can i be expecting if i return? Is 5k odd possible?

I would like to plan my decision according to the different circumstances that I can encounter.

Thank you all who have taken your time to read my questions and i really appreciate it. Hope u all are having a nice weekend!

Originally Posted by Unregistered (Post 83587)

I have a real question that I would hope someone might be able to answer not based on guesswork but facts and experience.

Please take this example:
A FRESH engineering undergrad who gets a job in public sector can get starting salary of around 3.5k or so. I am current a 2nd class uppers at NTU and let's say I decide not to go into the public sector yet, but would like to receive a much lower pay at around 2.5k because I would like to gain very valuable experience at a company first (please just take my words that it is really valuable) for maybe 3-5years.

After 3-5 years, if I would like to join the public sector using that valuable experience to have a bigger pay jump as compared to starting work straight in the public sector, how will they scale the salary? Will they take into consideration my 2nd class uppers and then add and scale the salary according to my valuable experience? Or will my 2nd class uppers no longer be considered and they will scale it to their own system(which can be disadvantageous to me since if I just join as a fresh grad, it might be more beneficial in the long run since my pay would have started fairly high at 3.5-4k).

It's a bit difficult to put it in words but I hope you guys could understand what I mean. Because the public sector has a rigid system, I am curious as to how they will scale the salary if I have really valuable experience.

Does anyone have any experience in such issues?

I really appreciate any help and would like to give my thanks in advance.

Originally Posted by Unregistered (Post 83888)

Has studying too much fry your brains or what?

You don't know how to decide b/w a 2.5k offer with $40 increment and 3.5k offer with $300 increment?

Instead of building market value how about building your bank account value first?