ABOUT MYSELF, MY CURRENT STATUS
I have just completed my MSc Management & Human Resources from the renowned London School of Economics & Political Science (ranked no. 2 in the world for Social Sciences & Management by QS, no. 11 for Social Sciences by Times and no. 14 in Business/Economics by ARWU for 2014) and just received an offer for a Management Trainee position.
I am still in the early stage of my career. Prior to my MSc Management & Human Resources, I have worked for two years as a HR Generalist at Bridge Mobile Private Limited, a joint venture company of 10 leading APAC Telecommunications companies including SingTel, Optus Australia, Globe Philippines and etc.
I am eager to learn. Beside my MSc Management & Human Resources, I hold a BSc Business, a Diploma in Employment Relations and a Diploma in Horticulture & Landscape Management. My passion is in HR but I am also very keen to understand how a company works as a whole hence I applied for Management Trainee Programmes where I get to be rotated around the company to learn the whole operations. This will prove useful in the future when I head a department. This is because when a company gets big, functions get specialised but the more specialised roles are, the more coordination is required. You cannot coordinate well if you do not know other departments well. This is probably why you can see that there are big MNCs having management trainee programmes with job rotation across the whole company where they will groom future leaders from.
My interest in HR was developed mainly due to my interest in the social sciences especially Social & Applied Psychology and for managing my own career as well as to help others in their career.
MY BACKGROUND
It may seem that I am among the elites having graduated from an elite university. However, this is not always true. I did badly for my primary four streaming examinations and ended in EM3, the worst stream and appealed to EM2 later. Though successful in the appeal, my background as EM3 cannot be denied. My Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE) aggregate score is only 160 out of 300 which is not very good. I entered Normal Academic stream. Though I did attain first in class every year, I did not score well enough to go Express stream and ended taking 5 years to do GCE 'O' levels instead of 4 years. I did quite well for my GCE 'N' levels being the top scorer in the school but it came with a price. I pushed myself too hard, ended in depression and even thought of quitting school at that time before my GCE 'N' levels. It was due to my mom's and form teacher's encouragements that I continued studying (and addicted to it later on lol...). I did not bad for my Diploma in Horticulture & Landscape Management scoring GPA of 3.2202 out of 4.0 but that was not good enough to enter Business School in local universities like NUS or NTU or SMU in year 2008. Hence, I applied for the next best alternative which is University of London International Programmes' BSc Business at Singapore Institute of Management Global Education.
Some of my friends advised me against going University of London International Programmes saying it is very difficult and that some of their friends failed examinations or even dropped out. I did not listen and went ahead thinking their friends probably did not work hard and did last minute examinations preparation. Indeed, I did not fail any modules and attained 2nd Upper Honours for my BSc Business eventually. The passing mark was 34% which seems very low but nevertheless, it was in fact very challenging. I in fact failed half of my modules in my first year mock examinations! I am not someone that is dumb having been a top scorer for GCE 'N' levels and a Diploma GPA of 3.2202 out of 4.0. The system is just different from Singapore and has different marking scheme which caught me off guard.
After graduating with a BSc Business, I went ahead to hunt for jobs in HR. It was not easy where I have to compete with local universities graduates who in the eyes of employers are more preferred. So, I took the temporary job route thinking if I performed well, the employer will likely convert me to a permanent role since they have seen my ability and would prefer me over some stranger that make claims of their abilities that are yet tested. Indeed, I was converted. My previous company is really not bad. I received a lot of exposure and made a few achievements that I can put in my resume that proved useful for my application to LSE and the company that just offered me a position.
I have always dreamed of getting into a Management Trainee position as it is the only way I can think of to be exposed to various job functions without ruining my resume as if I have a lack of direction jumping from a job function to another. Also, Management Trainee position grant me more development opportunities. It is not easy to get into one. It is very competitive with lots of tests beside interviews (assessment centre for some!). As distance learning tend to be discriminated against with employers preferring either local universities graduates or top overseas universities and that to get into most Management Trainee programmes, you cannot have more than 2-3 years of work experience (as they are afraid your mindset about work is fixed and hard to shape your mindset to fit into their corporate culture), I decided to look for a way out. As there are no postgraduate HR programmes in Singapore from local prestigious universities, I looked elsewhere.
Initially I have never thought of taking Masters degree or going overseas. What actually happened was that I received an email from SIM saying I'm eligible for scholarship and so I applied for it but a criteria is to get an offer from a university. So I applied for both the scholarship and tried my luck with LSE. I have received the offer from LSE but not the scholarship. I was thinking "Oh gosh... LSE! Its not easy to get in!" However, my family was not too supportive at that time. Lacking of funds, I rejected the offer and reinstated my application, trying my luck for scholarship for a second year of application. While waiting, I took up a part-time Diploma in Employment Relations to acquire HR knowledge in Singapore context as I lacked of HR knowledge given that BSc Business is quite general. In the second year, I received the offer but no scholarship. Family became supportive and I had some savings by the second year. And so I went! I made a gamble thinking it will be a positive return and indeed it has! Initially I was concerned as it was not cheap. The whole cost was S$70k (GBP 35k). But my ex-boss encouraged me saying when I am still young without much responsibility and able to travel and explore, go ahead. "Money is not much an issue, you will earn back eventually... next time if you have money and look back, you may regret!" as he said at that time and so I took courage and went. Now my exciting journey has just began! I am truly blessed by God and by family members and friends that helped me along the way. Getting into this management trainee position is also a wonderful birthday gift (it is a birthday gift cause I'll start work on my birthday itself!).
ABOUT THIS BLOG, ITS PURPOSE
I named this blog "My Thinking Cap" as I like to think and analyse, noting down my thoughts (that explains why my facebook is being flooded with my thoughts where I think quite 'loudly'). A key purpose of this blog as mentioned earlier is also to write about some tactics to help people with similar background as I have to compete for jobs and improve their employability.
In the next few posts, I will write about how to increase employability and competitiveness in job market. I will update the tactics as I gain more experience as well.
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