Compare civil service salary

Oh yes, there will be very few meetings. You typically work off a policy over e-mail. Hence, you spend your time in your cubicle writing papers most of the time. (And you wish that you are in your cubicle and not called up to Director's desk for Q&A too frequently - CEP defeating moments! )

Can you share some examples? For example what a typical day, week, or month is like if you have a policy role in Ministry of National Development.

What would I be writing exactly? And will I be writing and re-writing a paper over days or over months. In the end, how long are policy papers? What happens after the paper is approved by your superiors and put into action? You move on to another policy, and it repeats itself? Or do you re-look at the same policy again and again. Do you look at all the existing policies under the Ministry and tweak them, or do you look out for new suggestions to initiate a policy change? Do you work mostly individually on a policy, or is it a large team that brainstorms together everyday? Or do the policies just come down from the management for you to put into writing?

Is there a set of rules on how much research you must do? Do you have many opportunities to travel overseas or meet foreign counterparts to exchange ideas, or is it mostly self learning through your own readings?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Can you share some examples? For example what a typical day, week, or month is like if you have a policy role in Ministry of National Development.

What would I be writing exactly? And will I be writing and re-writing a paper over days or over months. In the end, how long are policy papers? What happens after the paper is approved by your superiors and put into action? You move on to another policy, and it repeats itself? Or do you re-look at the same policy again and again. Do you look at all the existing policies under the Ministry and tweak them, or do you look out for new suggestions to initiate a policy change? Do you work mostly individually on a policy, or is it a large team that brainstorms together everyday? Or do the policies just come down from the management for you to put into writing?

Is there a set of rules on how much research you must do? Do you have many opportunities to travel overseas or meet foreign counterparts to exchange ideas, or is it mostly self learning through your own readings?

I am interested in this as well. TIA for those who take the time to share their experiences.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi guys...wondering there was any circular from psd mentioning about no salary increment when transiting between ministries/statutory boards? if u've the circular, can paste the link over? thanks!

Yes. It is lower of last drawn salary or salary of position according to receiving agency salary framework. In other words, no more pay increment when you join another public agency unless u take in fresh terms and noy port over your leave benefits accured from working exp in the public sector

The policy was supposed to encourage career development by allowing officers to port over their benefits but i think the results may be the exact opposite.Maybe in the past, there were officers who did not perform well but managed to join another public agency for higher pay. However such officers are normally put on probabtion and if they do no perform well, they may not be confirmed. However, officers usually move for pay or career progreesion, so if an officer moves for a higher job but at the same pay, it will be bad for the morale of the officer. Furthermore, good performing officers are not motivated to move because they can progress in their own agencies, but when there is a vacancy, you will have difficulties filling it because officers are motivated to make lateral moves only and yet risk a low pb because the pb will be pro rated and yet the experienced hire will be too new in new agency to impress bosses to geta good performance grade. Almost certainly, the officer who moves will be worse off in annual compensation for the first year after the move.

you will meet many people in policy work. But you rather not meet them. The main reason is that you will have to staff the meetings. You will need to coordinate work trips (including buying of air tickets, booking of hotel rooms, tracking receipts, putting up reimbursements requests) and write file notes for each and every of these meetings which may also happen over dinner/lunch. You may even be called upon to do translation work (e.g., translate chinese to english) and whatever other admin functions. Policy farmers are most happy in their own cubicles when they have the time to do the real work

i think some points listed above may not be true. policy-making doesn't just entail writing papers in your cubicles; long hours yes no doubt about that. there's a fair share of back-and-fro with your superiors, clearing every single layer and incorporating their inputs. depending on policy complexity, rolling out a new initiative/programme could take 3 months at its fastest, to 9-12 months, or for those with far-reaching implications (think IRs), even years and umpteen Cab memos.

The final submission will likely resemble 20-30% of what you wrote in your very first, raw prelim draft but that's to be expected. As a policy officer, you do the legwork of doing research, speaking to the right parties (private and people sectors, foreign agencies, VWOs, straight to the heartland citizens via PA, etc), and knowing your stuff well know to convey your points across.

You'll be mightily surprised that most of the times, bosses do not clearly know what they want. It's up to the staff to propose and explore feasible alternatives and on balance (hard to escape this lingo), make a recommendation.

Whether you are ruminating over and again over the same policy, or moving on to devising new or reviewing existing policies, it really depends. But if you're a high-flier/scholar, your boss will probably move you on to the next big thing and focus on other top-line policies once again.

Hope that helps.

[cnsg99]

trying to apply civil service job.
is MBA recognized?

I had local poly diploma, then part time degree through kaplan, 2nd lower. then part time MBA through NUS, 2nd lower(based on cap).

it's likely they won't value my kaplan degree. not sure if they accept nus mba?

My personal take on academic education is that a person, without sponsorship nor scholarship, acquiring a degree should be enough. If that degree comes with honours, he should aim to get that. Beyond that, Masters or PhD, should NOT be attempted at your own expense. The risk here is that no employer would want to employ you without prior work experience and the higher degrees may make it hard for them to place you.

So stop at the degree level, get employed then secure a company scholarship or sponsorship to further your studies. That way, at least you will know that there's a job waiting when you complete your further studies, and that when they sponsor your studies, they would want it to be in an area which is relevant to your job.

The CS or at least Stat Boards ,recognized the private degrees their staff attained while in service but not those who are not yet employed by them. Guess one of the reasons is that they already assessed the capability of the staff through their work.

The other thing to note is that that piece of academic paper does not guarantee that you will perform in the job, especially if the paper is awarded by a not so recognized Uni. where there is no track record that the grads do well.

Originally Posted by cnsg99

trying to apply civil service job.
is MBA recognized?

I had local poly diploma, then part time degree through kaplan, 2nd lower. then part time MBA through NUS, 2nd lower(based on cap).

it's likely they won't value my kaplan degree. not sure if they accept nus mba?

Does the civil service or public service employ director level staff from private sectors?

Has anyone successfully jumped ship from private sector to public sector starting at assistant/deputy director or director level?