Isn't that akin to wasting (or at best sub-optimising) 3 of the most important initial years of your career in a field that's suboptimal for your chosen vocation ie. investment banking, for a qualification that useless for investment banking?

Wouldn't it be better to cut your losses (ie. ignore the sunk costs) and spend the next 3 years in an investment bank pursuing a CFA instead?

same at my area... the only downside is they like to picnic in open areas like below the mrt track and leave a bunch of trash after that... or in mrt they would run and rush in like phillipinos... and they smell bad too, for most of them... besides that they are fine, they mind their own business... in fact my neighbor is from india, they have non of the downside and i find them very friendly.... some richer ones especially the capitalist class are a bit sombong according to taxi drivers...
no no, dont take it the wrong way... i think what he/she has said have some logic behind it... ntg to do with racism

lets analyze his/her statement:



having said all that.. i had met malaysian malays are over the world and majority of them are doing very well.. even without the help of the msian gov and even with the help of the msian gov it still shows that malays can excel, workhard and compete with the rest with some help... azrink is one of those malays, making it all the way to sg... if only more malays in msia are like that, too bad majority still believes the help from the government are god given, they continue to leach on it not knowing it is on the expense of others and one day it will stop.

probably they can learn from the malays in sg, although some of them dont excel too well academically they make it up by working hard and honest. the sg gov had provided a very conducive avenue for them, that's why you see a lot of grassroot gov servants are malays... enter sg, the customs, immigration, police and civil defense. instead of lepak, rempit, dadah they work hard with no corruption, the gov reward them well.

well I suppose most enter audits to gain few years of experience before applying for an analyst job. Its not that easy even to get an interview in investment banking for fresh grads afterall

Hi,

Good day
Seantang

Nice to know you

I am new here and it is quite often to seen you always post some comment within the forum of job& street, especially more on here and the other. Can you guide me how to get into the good-environment firm in singapore( How about the big 4 in singapore and other well-know accounting firm)? if you don't mind, can I contact you personally by facebook? because right now I am desperately hope that I will be able to get the job in Singapore, despite I am going to graduate soon, but not later. And, generally, I have My CV sent to the firm through Job DB quite some days ago, and still not able to get any respond from them, will this consider be rejected by them ?
At last, hope someone is able to enlightening me through "dark water" dilemma, as chinese said.

Thanks you very much.

agreed

anyway, wanna ask ur opinion, I have got my OBU degree first class and should be finishing my ACCA and CFA part1 in june. do u think i would stand a chance in applying to IB in singapore for entry position?

That just means most just wasted a few years gaining sub-optimal experience. Unless getting older is no issue, this could be a significant penalty.

One of the biggest regrets of my career was that I spent the first 3 years in audit firms instead of joining the MNC I'm in now, right out of university. Although Big4 experience made it fairly easy to join any MNC I wanted, I found that despite my Big4 background, I still needed to spend 2-3 years to gain credibility within the organisation and build the relationships to convince the bosses that I was someone whose progress is worth their support. As a result, I was put on hi-po or fast track when I was 28, compared to my peers who got in when they were 24-25. On this route, you can get promoted every 2-3 years. Even today, I find that my peers ie. those in the same hi-po batch as me, are still 1-2 levels ahead of me. This can be frustrating as I have more experience. What's even more frustrating is that they are a few years younger and technically have more career time to get more promotions than I do. They can potentially retire 3-4 levels higher than me.

This post has been edited by seantang: Apr 3 2011, 01:31 PM

The perception of having either cfa or acca to open doors to ib is pretty inaccurate. You may think the more the merrier. But really job opportunities in ib really depends on your campus. Not the rule of thumb but carries immense weight.

Not on FB. If you like, you can use the PM here in LYN.

But do note that I'm not a career counsellor ie. I don't have "advice" for every situation nor am I a recruitment specialist with "advice" to help you get a job. If I feel I can help, I'll answer.

---

Added on April 3, 2011, 1:43 pm
OK, I guess. Keelim is a better person to ask as my experience with banks is limited to one mid-career interview, lots of talk cock about IB opportunities with recruiters and my dealings with bankers (but these are the relationship mgt folks, rather than the IB folks).

This post has been edited by seantang: Apr 3 2011, 01:44 PM

Thanks you very very much, indeed, finally there is someone really helpful at all, on earth.
Frankly speaking, how to use PM here in LYN.
Normally, i wanted to know how can i apply the accounting job in Big 4, singapore, or even the well-know medium accounting firm? did you know What are the way can I talk personally to them or they just ignored malaysian to join their firm, despite most of them only consider their local gradu, espcially NUS ?

Thanks you

From what I've heard, there ARE high preferences in terms of the nationality criteria for some Big4 companies.

This post has been edited by gabLhowe: Apr 3 2011, 02:45 PM

Interesting, looks somewhat accurate. Useful for all those newbies who keep asking whether they can 'survive' in SG.

Cost of Living - SG vs KL at http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compa...y2=Kuala+Lumpur

This post has been edited by seantang: Apr 3 2011, 03:38 PM

Online application and resume submission will do for all the Big4s, and I believe this should be the same for most of the well known mid-tier such as BDO, GT, RSM etc. Audit firm is one of the few who do take in quite a substantial amount of foreigners.

Hmm high preference, how so?

Thank you for your kind of consideration

May I know are you working in one of the accounting firm you mentioned above in singapore? Are you malaysian resident?
Hope you can guide me the way to singapore.

izzit so important to join one of the big 4 in singapore?? seriously... asked urself, why muz they consider you as they are many pple also like you also applying and wanan go in so badly... u're consider lucky if u can land a job in sg here... sometimes u juz cant choose becoz they dun owe u anythin... and also they stated only shortlisted will be notified... so dun put so much hope...

if we cannot get the employment pass, does that means we have to come back to malaysia?

it depends... comapny can appeal for u... if not den apply again for another job... if exceeded the time frame limit u can stay in singapore den u have to go bak malaysia...

Employment Pass not approve, get S-Pass lor... If can't then can ready backpack go back to MY.

You can ask the company to help you appeal for it and it will take bout 3 weeks just to know the result, but in the mean time, u can actually look for other jobs. Don't give up hope because one company fail to apply an employment pass for you.

1. i do hope u get wat i meant, cos i was trying to say if ur objective is to go into IB, better go for auditing, as compared to finance/internal audit. The latter tend to see a smaller pic and ur focus is only on one company for few years with unnecessary depth of experience.

2. Actually u still can get ACCA membership by working as analyst. no difference. U only need to work in audit/finance, if u wana be an accountant,with those MIA membership or if u wan to sign accounts. If u do have chance to get into banking as analyst, indeed better tho, like wat sean said. But bare in mind not any analyst job. make sure it's either front office, credit analyst or real analyst (as in research/equity/fixed incomce). Not those back office analyst level, like processing dept/finance dept/audit, compliance, etc.

3. Nonetheless, do finish up ur 2 last ACCA papers. CFA is very very tough. For IB roles, CFA is indeed more recognised than ACCA, provided ur are capable enuf to get one.

This post has been edited by Aloong: Apr 3 2011, 10:20 PM

@ Lester1987
1. 1st of all, u study in UiTM? so i assume that u are a Malay?

yes

2. why you so desperately wanna leave Malaysia? Hutang Ah Long ar?

no. but some personal problem

3. 2ndly not that i want to demotivate you, if you are a non-chinese, the chances of you landing a job in SG is a lot lower compare to Malaysian chinese because as you know, Singapore contains 75% Chinese and when you work in the service industry (Mc.D or retail stores), you need to know mandarin. Unless you can speak excellent English. but that also doesn't give you any good advantage if there is a PRC worker that speak mandarin and satisfactory level English, they will definitely go for the PRC.

thanks but i think i'm willing to try

4. Since Malay got so many benefits in Malaysia, why don't you continue to further your career in Malaysia? try to apply those GLC, you will have higher chances to get a job there and career advancement in those company if your a malay is quite good as well.

read no 2, thanks