Sg is a pretty good place for career advancement. Especially if you're mid-career. Your salary won't stay low forever... although it might seem like that early on.

But I will say one thing. Given a second chance, I'll kick the ass of whoever told me that "first few years, low salary never mind. Just learn." You can optimise your salary and still learn as much as the next guy. The more salary you have and the earlier you have it, the more money you accumulate.

And we only have a certain number of "peak earnings growth" years, usually about 10 years starting from the time you hit 30s-mid 30s. After that you stagnate unless you manage to be in the top 5% ie. senior mgt. The higher your salary when you hit 30s, the more base is available to grow/peak. And when you stagnate in your 40s, it's much more fun to hit a 20K-30K wall than a 10K wall for the next 10-15 years before you retire or are made redundant.

I had a late start compared to my peers in Sg. Namely because I did my tour of duty in the Big4 and then bodoh-bodoh spent the first years in my current company's KL office instead of buidling my reputation and network in a regional HQ like SG or HK. Over the last few years in Sg, I'm lucky to have found a few godfathers and have caught up. But my peers are already paying off their private condos from the last 10 years of earnings and looking at buying landed properties with their next 10 years of peak earnings growth. Me... I'm depending on the next 10 years peak growth to fund my first property in Sg. Unless I somehow move ahead of them at double their promotion rate, I can never catch up.

This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 23 2011, 07:37 PM

Again... you're basing your assumption about the entire job market in Sg and My on one data point.

Because I'm not allowed to?

Big4 experience is blue chip, make no mistake about that. BUT it is NOT the only source of blue chip experience. Fortune 200, bulge bracket banks, govt agencies like EDB, MOF, IMF etc all offer blue chip experience for much higher pay and less stress.

And the fact is that unless you want to remain in the Big4 long term and try for partnership, you'll be moving out after 3-5 years. If you're going to the average company, the Big4 experience will put you ahead of their internal folks as these companies are not industry leaders. But if you're moving to one of the blue chip companies mentioned, their internal people will be ahead of you. Their experience is as good as yours, their salary is higher and their reputation and network has already been developed. You will forever be trying to catch up.

This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 24 2011, 11:02 AM

Networks that do what?

External networks are good if you change jobs often or if you intend to start your own practice.

Internal networks are important if you want to climb the ladder within the same company, especially in large MNCs with tens of thousands of employees, bosses changing/you changing every 3 years and the politics.

Most CEOs, GMs, Presidents etc are not from the auditing firms. Top managers need to understand the concepts of profit & loss, balance sheet, cash flow and ratios of course but they don't need to know all the mechanics, accounting standards etc in depth. That's what the CFO or finance business partner is for. Financial acumen or financial general knowledge and going through the finance module in a MBA or executive MBA (for some basic mechanics) is more than enough for business managers.

Actually, even the CFO doesn't need to understand everything about the legal financial statements (which is 99% of what external audit is about but is only about 10% of what overall finance is about). That's what the financial controller or accounting director is for.

This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 24 2011, 06:30 PM

These are just titles.

There are many subfunctions in finance, from treasury to taxation to internal audit to accounting etc etc (even within accounting, there's management accounting or internal/mgt book and statutory or external/legal book). In most large companies, a different person takes care of each subfunction and all of them report to the CFO. So each subfunction may have a different director (ie. many finance directors) but all of them report to the CFO. There can only be one CFO.

In many US companies, accountants in the accounting subfunction are called controllers. So the financial controller or chief controller is basically the director of the accounting subfunction ie. accounting director.

In my company, it's the CFO (1) -> global subfunction finance directors (10), global business finance directors (5), continental/area finance directors (5) -> global sub-subfunction finance directors or regional subfunction or regional business finance directors (200) -> rest of us.

You only need to be very good at finstat if you want to do accounting or audit subfunction. A company will need a different kind of CFO (or in your mind, FD) according to its needs at the moment. If the company is growing fast and needs to raise capital/funding, then they want a CFO strong in treasury. If the company is quite steady and focused on competition and improving profitability, then they need a strong business finance person. I've never seen a company require a CFO who's strong in accounting, especially finstat. Accountants doing accounting are very easy to get, adds no value to the bottom line and the CFO can just anyhow get an accounting director and let him run the accounting subfunction or process.

This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 24 2011, 11:12 PM

Like I said, it's just titles. Your company likes to call each subfunction's leader differently. That's all.

That's why you need to look at someone's job scope and pay package to know what they do and how senior they are - rather than rely on job titles.

No, that's not what I said. CIMA's also accounting what. It's management accounting, not finstat, but it's still accounting.

Cause and effect,.. don't put the wrong one in front of the other.

Are they CFOs who happened to have accounting experience (because accountants typically form the largest pool of candidates as the vast majority of finance graduates start their careers there), or did they become CFOs because of their accounting experience?

Was Steve Jobs a success who happened to be a university drop out, or did he succeed because he dropped out of university?

Look deeper... how long did they spend in accounting? Secondly, what was the prior 2-3 jobs immediately before their appointment as CFO?

And the UK is obsessed with "professional qualifications"... judging from how many of these qualifications originate from there. Can you find out how many CFOs of DJI companies are accountants?

This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 25 2011, 03:09 PM

Are you working in UK?

CIMA, ACCA, CAT and the multiple regional CAs are all from the UK. If that's not a ridiculous over-obsession with overlapping accounting qualifications, I'm not sure what is.

Oh really? Since when do you know what I'm proud of and what I'm not?

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Added on December 25, 2011, 11:33 pmIs that so?

A real measurement of your worth is not how good you think you are (or how bad you think others are) but how much someone wants to pay you.

So, let's cut to the chase. How much do you earn from your non-kacang putih qualifications? Lets trade Linkedin profiles. Based on that, we can immediately tell if you're the laughing stock or I am. I want to see if you laugh harder at me, or I laugh harder at you.

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Added on December 25, 2011, 11:36 pmIf you have a strong resume, then apply online or respond to job advertisements - as higher profile or front office jobs tend to be advertised.

If your resume is not so strong, it's best if you engage a recruitment agent - most back office and lower profile accounting jobs are not advertised.

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Added on December 25, 2011, 11:46 pmI tend to like someplace farther from the CBD, eg. AMK or Yio Chu Kang up north where the rent is cheaper. And there's really no need to pay a premium and stay near an MRT station. As long as you stay near a feeder bus bus-stop, you can get to the MRT station in 5-10 minutes (5-10 stops). Assuming a 15 minute train ride, you're in town within 30-45 minutes from the moment you step out the door.

My place is about 15-20 minutes walking from the MRT station, but there's a feeder bus bus-stop directly underneath my block. And with a smartphone app that shows next bus arrival time, there's minimal waiting time involved.

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Added on December 25, 2011, 11:52 pmYour friends are right. The occasionally frequent "nice" meal will always happen.

Nobody possesses enough will power or underdeveloped taste buds to eat $5 economy meals 3 times a day, 7 days a week. Even if such people exist, they are not very fun to be around.

This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 26 2011, 12:06 AM

I don't know about you but the whole, entire reason I came to Singapore in the first place, was so that I don't have to be thrifty in order to save money for my future. By growing my income, I don't have to minimise my expenses to achieve my savings target.

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Added on December 26, 2011, 11:41 amOK, 2 years Big4... and if your commercial experience is with a reasonable brand name and your educational background is reasonable - I'd think your profile's okay... somewhere in the middle. If you want to get into the "industry leaders"... then I reckon it's a matter of getting your resume noticed vs the competition. This is the hard part.

I think you should work both sides... respond to ads as well as engage recruitment agencies. Another avenue is Linkedin... there are lots of Singaporean recruiters hanging out there and contacting people to make new connections. For ads, try www.efinancialcareers.sg as well. Very focused for finance (esp. banking) jobs.

This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 26 2011, 11:41 AM

SG office or Cupertino?

People ask, I answer if I feel like it. They want to listen, fine. They don't want to listen, also fine.

Why your butt so hurt?

In addition, what is this "last in action" bs? I'm just an online nick to you. By definition, you can have absolutely no idea what my actions are.

This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 26 2011, 08:43 PM

It's only you I'm afraid. It's served me quite well. 90% of the jobs I'm interested in look for someone who's legally qualified to practice. That's about all there is to it. As for all your cut and paste... as long as the governing bodies and other professional bodies recognise CPA, that's irrelevant.

If you don't mind, PM me your Linkedin profile. I'll connect to you. We can always delete each other after laughing.

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Added on December 27, 2011, 12:49 amDo you want to keep this civil, or go all kindergarten? Don't you think it's childish behaviour like this that people laugh at, instead of which qualification?

This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 27 2011, 01:10 AM

My apologies to everyone for this thread being sidetracked for the last few pages. It'll go no further from my end.

That wasn't my case leh. I started contributing to CPF after getting PR. Anything and everything I received before becoming PR was not in scope for CPF.

This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 28 2011, 11:12 AM

No, wrong conclusion.

The stronger the currency against USD = long age!

Living in Afghanistan is more stressful than Japan. But their life expectancy is just 48.

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Added on December 29, 2011, 9:52 amBecause from the way you conduct yourself, I think that you are dishonest and will provide a bogus linkedin profile. And given how childish and hostile you are in the last few posts, I do not want a troll to know my real name and details.

I was hasty to suggest trading Linkedins in the heat of the moment, forgetting there was no way for me to verify whatever profile you put up. And then I remembered your nick and your absolutely disgraceful behaviour from my previous encounters with you, 99% name calling and nothing to support your arguments besides motherhood statements purportedly representing all employers or entire countries and cut & paste which you probably typed yourself. Simply too much venom and spite in the way you and your other dupe nicks (all below 50 posts at that time) carry yourselves to have any real credibility.

I changed my mind. So, there.

This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 29 2011, 10:19 AM

I'm actually quite pro-NS for kids,.. especially for ethnic-Chinese kids in this region. There is absolutely no harm in more Chinese kids learning how to shoot and kill non-Chinese kids. They will need to do it, sooner or later... or else all sorts of May13 and May,1998 will occur and they will be told it's their fault for not following the "social contract".

Not a lick of use in a racial riot.

What chinese need is access to guns and the training to use them to kill.

And the fact that chinese have that weapon access and training will be a potent deterrent factor to any non-chinese who are thinking about screwing with the chinese again.

Every year how many? How do you feel if your family got parang-ed to death by a mob, or live under the constant yoke of ketuanan or threat of amuk?

This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 29 2011, 10:44 PM