How is the culture like within MND?

In advanced stages of interviewing and curious about work-life balance, amount of politics, etc.

Farmer, currently working in private sector, interested in stability and being able to leave at 5:30pm every day.

By mid 40s probably can

For some, never.

After our civil service scheme has merged into one, do you guys think that diploma and degree holder's progression will be the same?

If the degree is from SIM maybe, else diploma holder is always third class citizen

Not true. Farmers in the civil service are more capable/smart than the average worker in the private sector except for your usual top MNCs. To get into CS, need min. second-upper in NUS/NTU (this filters out 90% of SGreans already) and then have to go through about 3 rounds of interviews. It's really quite selective.

Says the civil service farmer trying to tell himself he's part of a prestigious group.

Second upper in NUS/NTU is rather common nowadays. Have seen more than a few grads with second upper local degrees in the workplace, though from their performance I wouldn't be surprised if they'd graduated with no honours at all. If you get second lower and below you should apologise and kowtow to your parents for wasting their money sending you to university.

Ha ha no, I worked in HR in both public and private so I've seen both sides, my impression interviewing candidates who apply for the civil service is that 1. qualifications are generally better, 2. more articulate and 3. intelligent/critical thinkers. Regarding actual work performance that one idk la

SIM (or otherwise known as SUSS) is recognized in civil service?

Yes but they will assign you to be toilet cleaner