I'm in between jobs so thought of doing something fun (and hopefully helpful for the job seekers community).

A little bit about myself:

I have 10 years experience in Recruitment (7 years in a top recruitment firm in Malaysia and 3 years as an internal recruiter in a Tech company). In my career, I've been promoted 5 times and went from a Junior Recruitment Consultant to where I am now as a Recruiting Manager. I absolutely miss my agency days where I was raking $$$ from making placements across Malaysia. Took a (indirect) cut to do internal recruitment in hope to be more involved in recruiting ops and strategy and have never looked back since.

I've spoken to approximately 7000 candidates, placed more than 600 of them in jobs, met with at least 1000 hiring managers throughout my career in Malaysia and Singapore. Having seen the variance between offers, experiences and screening through countless of CVs, I hope I'll be able to answer any questions you may have

I've recruited for a wide range of roles including Finance, Sales & Marketing, Technology (currently) and Strategy related positions. I spend every week talking to candidates, understanding the needs and wants of different hiring managers and companies, prepping candidates to ace interviews and negotiating the best possible offers for them so ask away!



This post has been edited by mimikw: Feb 23 2022, 10:02 PM

PM

This post has been edited by Perspective2021: Feb 21 2022, 09:26 AM

It should be interesting to hear your observations of the current employment trend in Msia/SG.

Here are some of my question to kick off and further pique reader's interest hopefully:

1. Do you see any cultural difference between Msia and SG in terms of employer's preference for candidates (e.g., specific focus on ability to express themselves vs technical capability)

2. Assuming you are represent SG candidates, what are the main differences you see between Msia vs SG candidates.

3. Is there any quick indicators (based on conversations/interview sessions) that you think a prospective employer / employee is 'good'?

Thanks in advance.

This post has been edited by Justin Wong: Feb 18 2022, 09:33 AM

1) Why do some companies proceed to interview, and then OFFER, a candidate who makes it clear from the very beginning he'd accept nothing less than e.g. RM6k, a job at RM5.5k?

2) Is it true that for the larger, more established financial firms (insurance and banks and asset management), increments of 30% are considered "max"? I've heard this from a number of companies in the past.

just curious, is there any difference on interview behaviour between those 90's and those after 00's that u met?

Thank you for giving back to the community.
What are the qualities you think for someone to be Head of Department/C-Level?
Any particular skillset which need be be learned?
I'm in technology field.

1. Seems like it's quite common practice for HR to ask for previous payslip in Malaysia. Does it apply to SG as well?
2. Are there instances, where the candidate's expected salary is lower than the budget allocated for that particular position and if so do you give them their expected salary or more given the budget?
3. What's the most hike in salary that you have offered to someone?
4. Have you hired ex auditors making transition into industry/commercial roles? What is the usual transition careers?

HIIII

1. Do you see any cultural difference between Msia and SG in terms of employer's preference for candidates (e.g., specific focus on ability to express themselves vs technical capability)

No major difference but I must say it's def more competitive in Singapore than it is in Malaysia. Singapore has better tolerance for expats (the MOM dependency rate is 1 expat to 3 Singaporeans/PR vs 1 to 10 locals in Malaysia) so the market is a lot more competitive as you have talent from everywhere around the world. Candidates really need to stand out to nail an offer whereas in Malaysia the common theme would be the lack of soft skills - candidates not able to express themselves eloquently despite being qualified on paper. I had many candidates that falls under this department; they can do the job but they're terrible in expressing but it's not smt prep can't help. Employers in Malaysia, generally, are still willing to take the bet on people vs in Singapore, employers are expecting both soft skills and technical capabilities and if you only have 1 over the other, I'm afraid you might lose the rat race.

2. Assuming you are represent SG candidates, what are the main differences you see between Msia vs SG candidates.

Candidates in Singapore (not necessarily Singaporeans, there's a good bunch of Malaysians here too) are generally more confident, proactive and aggressive. They drive and lead the interview instead of answering your question 1 by 1 (which is the case for most candidates in Malaysia). I think this stems from the Malaysian education system where we (at least when I was a student back in 2000s) were not encouraged to challenge your teacher/speak up.
Secondly, candidates in Singapore are also more demanding or self aware of their worth so it's harder to influence them compared to influencing a candidate in Malaysia. To that point, I personally feel that candidates in Malaysia are much easier to "manage" and/or please.

3. Is there any quick indicators (based on conversations/interview sessions) that you think a prospective employer / employee is 'good'?
- Recruiters usually are not able to test on technical skills (always during the hiring manager interviews) but experienced recruiters are trained to access communication skills, career trajectory (we love candidates who have been promoted couple of time with their company) and behavior. Behavior based interviews helps - you'll probably hear an interviewer asking you smt along this line "Can you share with me a time when you face any conflict within your team" "What was your biggest accomplishment with Company Y?" They want to hear the RESULTS, not the problem. HOW you achieve it and WHAT's the outcome. Most important of all, the best indicator is passion. I always pass candidates who are passionate about the job their doing - you can always tell from their interest level, body language and the pure enthusiasm/energy when they speak to you. It is contagious!
Likewise, with employer (I assume you mean hiring managers), the best HMs are those who provide feedback consistently so we know if we're aligned on all fronts. Also we appreciate HM that KNOWS what they want as I've come across so many who changes their mind all the time or someone who wants a unicorn. There's no unicorns so they need to prioritise what matters to them and what are some attributes they're happy to train on the job.

1. It is common in Singapore too, in fact some big companies in Singapore hires background check providers to have a deep dive on your history etc. If you want to avoid providing payslips, it's usually the start up companies that do not have proper established processes - some HRs might skip this step, largely based on trust.

2. I can safely tell you 90% of the time, your offer is based on your current salary + a minor increment and NOT the budget. There's only a handful instances in my career where a candidate is on 5K and the budget is 9-12K so the client offer 9K. Almost never happens because all companies have a dedicated compensation and benefit team and the recommended increment is always 10-20% (Malaysia is 15%). They will not do outliers like 40% unless this is a highly niche & critical role (a rubber R&D specialist with experience in nitrile glove). As far as I understand, it is illegal to ask for payslips and their current salary in US so many pay based on expected salary and if the candidate is able to demonstrate all the skills required say, for a L5 SWE role, his offer will fall into the L5 band..unfortunately, this is not practiced in both Malaysia and Singapore. To your question, we do not tend to pay expected as well but try to bridge the gap between our offer and your expectation.

3. Double their salary It was a really niche role.

4. Yes! There are a bunch of start ups, especially, that hires Business Transformation/Strategy & Ops roles and they do hunt for ex-auditors (because honestly Management Consultants are too expensive lol). Maybe you should skill up to increase your chances. Many of my candidates do quick courses on SQL and Python to get into Commercial roles.
OR you can go the Sales/BD route - I have seen many Finance Recruiters and Finance product Sales executives (who are ex auditors).

Not sure if I'm able to provide the best advice as I have not fill many C-level roles.
As far as I understand, when it's C level roles, it's largely leadership skills and charisma (not so on hard skills). Clients tend to hire from the same industry as they have less tolerant for a CEO that has to learn everything from scratch again hence C level searches are very curated and personalised.

They need to see the way you carry yourself in interview - the person will usually be eloquent, confident but at the same time, not arrogant; able to articulate things clearly and concisely, with a a top to bottom approach and lastly super important, industry knowledge -the most prized quality.

At C level, you should know why they're hiring : is it to revamp a business? to grow 5X? or to take over?
Walk into the interview with a short and long term business plan in mind how are you going to achieve that objective without being overbearing (firing everyone or changing every processes). They'd also like to hear your experience in managing an entire business, how to bring them from A to Z.

Also, for every role on top usually you need to have some sort of P&L experience.

hope this helps!

In Malaysia, companies tend to try to cap increase of say 20-30% for a candidate when moving companies. I know some even cap it at 15%. Do you see the same in Singapore?

1. Let me turn the tables around a bit since you've looked at this from the other side of the table, any suggestions on strategies to retain talent, especially in hot industries? I'm currently in cloud services. There are ways for an employer/HOD to keep an existing employee interested including renumeration and job growth, but what else can you suggest?


2. What are job seekers especially in tech looking for when jumping ship? What are the reasons a tech employee is giving when leaving company or joining a new company? I'm going to assume that compensation is one thing, but anything else especially when they get a job offer where the pay is similar and they're willing to choose one instead of another? I've made several offers over the past 3 months that have been turned down even when we agreed to their asking salaries.

1) Honestly there's no blanket answer to this one. Could be incompetent HR (one that couldn't be bothered/care less of what a candidate is looking for or simply ignorant) or they're just trying their luck. Many times, candidates expected salary could be X but I find more than 50% of the time, they will eventually accept an offer 10% lower for a variety of reasons (scope, promise of career progression, culture, WLB etc).

2) Yes, as in all bigger companies with established HR processes has to stay within a compensation band based on internal and external (eg: Mercer) data. If you receive an offer, they will bench your current salary against that band and offer a % increment, usually 15% but like you say, it could go up to 30% >based on your negotiation skills (usually the higher band are for those who are under the market/underpaid/ has competing offers/niche skills/ role has been open for too long). This is to ensure consistency and to avoid irregularities (imagine HR 1 offer 60% increase and HR 2 offer 20%) this will mess up internal equity.

Is it true it field has higher starting pay than other fields?

Yup, similar to my previous post, all companies has SOP and its uncommon for them to go beyond a certain band (>30%) UNLESS they're in dire need of the person. Applies to Singapore as well. Contrary to what other think, usually it's the bigger, more established companies are the ones that offer minimum increment (10%-20%).
There are a handful of companies that do not follow this rule (usually companies without HR processes, you can tell when your hiring manager/agency is the one managing the process and offer).

1. Interesting question!! My company is currently battling with attrition problem due to the intense competition in APAC.
Back in my agency days, we always conduct these type of surveys to see how we can help client retain talent and the baffling discovery is most employee leave not for better salary, they leave for better work culture. Like they say, culture eats strategy for breakfast and culture stems from the top. That's why you see top companies like Google & Meta offer free meals, childcare/barista/gym services/ full flex work arrangement/ 6 months maternity leave just to keep employees happy. You can pay your employee at max range but it won't keep them for long if they're not enjoying what they're doing. Aside from remuneration and job growth (promotion), we also find employees wants to feel belonged so monthly townhalls/all hands are good to keep them engaged. Reward and Recognition are both important. Showcase them if they've done a great job. Some employers also invest in up skilling them (sending them for courses, even overseas short term training and bonding them for 1 year in return).

Lastly, this is uncommon in Malaysia but here many tech companies especially offer equity to employees that is vested across 4 years. Microsoft, Google, Meta, Uber offers a 4 years vesting schedule of 25%/25%/25%/25% after completion of each year on top of equity refreshers yearly to keep them so this could be a new strategy company can adopt to retain their top talent. Some companies like Amazon are even more aggressive with a backload vesting 10/20/30/40% after each year (so they'll very unlikely to leave after 2 years). Oh well in all honestly you'd be lucky to keep a good employee for 3 years these days.


2. You're right! A regular job seeker will be interviewing on average 3-5 companies and a good one will get more than 1 offer so the competition is real. As recruiters, I learned from experience we need to manage expectations from the beginning of the process (not only at offer stage); it's important you know what is the candidate looking for? Is it money? growth? What are his/her short/long term goals and how can you or the company be able to support his/her aspiration/growth?.
I will also always ask if they're interviewing elsewhere and for what roles/industry - even if they refuse the share the companies name, I'd like to know what am I up against so I can do some research and be prepared for my closing before the offer stage.
After every interview stage, I will also do a follow up to get feedback from the candidate or if s/he has any concerns - it it IMPORTANT we address any concerns soon. If it's WLB (I may arrange an informal chat with someone in the team to reassure the cdd), if it's scope, I'll need to get the hiring manager involved; point is the candidate should feel at ease after the entire process. Last but not least, the company PITCH is everything > How are you going to pitch about your company? I'd usually start with our vision and mission before going on to growth plans and culture.
It sounds like you're a hiring manager - if you are, I'd highly recommend you work closely with your recruiter should you identify a good candidate. I'd like to think recruiters are more than gate keeper; they have to be a good sales person, empathetic process owner and a skilled negotiator.

It's all supply and demand. During the oil boom, oil and gas engineers are highly sought after so field engineers raked so much from offshore trips and currently there is a shortage of tech talent, so with higher demand, lower supply, it pushes the overall average compensation upwards.

Interesting, out of the 5 tech companies you mentioned above, which do you think has the toughest interview process?

Haha depends on the role. For non Technical roles ,they're all difficult but if I had to choose, I'd say Uber - most L3 and above roles for Uber has a final case study presentation with a panel; followed by Amazon (they have a 6 panel loop interview + written essay before you get invited for the loop). Similar process for Google, Meta, Microsoft, not 'hard' per se but the bar is extremely high - For Tech roles, go check out Blind.

Cool, thanks for sharing. I notice that a number of the more senior roles tend to have case studies and a presentation as part of the interview process. I remember Shopee and SEEK Asia having them. I wonder how Grab's interview process is compared to Uber as since Uber moved out but now might be making a comeback in the region again.

I've never interviewed for Uber, but have definitely interviewed for AWS and Microsoft and I concur with your statement.

I've used Blind on and off over the years and it's a fantastic resource even when I interviewed mostly for APAC roles only. The culture in these companies is pretty consistent.

Yup. I think IT field is indispensable for long term.

Interesting!

What's the most common faux pas from applicants you came across?

Possible for a non-IT person to pivot into IT positions without technical knowledge - in MY/SG? If yes, how?

Is your job on a fixed fee-basis or depends on how much less you managed to place someone below the budget? Or is your fee is at a % of candidate's accepted salary?

do you practice die die must ask X months payslip from candidate before give offer?

This post has been edited by telurhilang: Feb 21 2022, 10:00 AM

I get your point although I'd argue that free meals, childcare/barista/gym etc is not strictly culture. To me culture is Google's 20% rule or what Reed Hastings did or the AWS 2-pizza team.
So salary to get people in, culture, growth and engagement to keep people in but as with everything. What I found difficult is to maintain culture as the company grows. Alternatively how to change/improve culture when a company pivots. It's definitely an ongoing process.


I've been at a receiving end of this (US based multinational in KL) and I absolutely agree. I think I'm fortunate that I was in an organization that can provide this, but it's not the norm in many public listed companies in Malaysia. I asked Axiata for example during my last interview, they definitely didn't practice that.


This is another useful tip. The most interesting interview I've had was with IBM 2-3 years ago where the hiring manager did a fantastic pitch on how IBM was going towards big data and machine learning and not the lumbering outdated giant most tech journalists imply they were. I've always tried to do this when interviewing other people too.

Anyway thank you for your inputs so far.

Interesting insights, thanks for sharing

Number 1 problem with company battling attrition. They want to copy FAANG but only the easy part.
Do you know where else employees can get free meals? Free coffee? Work in a coal mine. It is not a FAANG culture but just perks.
They do this because they already maxed out on the monetary-based compensation part.

When you mention, most employees left not for better salary but culture. Are you sure about this? Can pay inequity (against internal and market) be the problematic culture here?
When is the last time your company perform a pay equity audit?

Why are recruiters ghosting on job applicants? Like is giving an update or replying an email so difficult?

Depends on the role, but some of them have literally too many to manage. Sometimes the recruitment system doesn't allow or have the feature to send an automated message.

If the recruiter has spent time on speaking to the candidate and promise to get back to him/her the next day, and disappeared after that, is this excusable with 'too many to manage'? It's a really bad work ethics. And no one ever realise that these candidates could potentially be their fiture clients

Have you contacted back the recruiter and asked for a status update? I have spoken to a person who headed up a recruitment firm and she specifically told me that in the market, the candidate should be the one to get back to the recruiter with a simple follow up. Again its not an excuse with their behaviour or work ethics. At the end of the day, personally I see this is as a dog-eat-dog environment and results come to those who take action.

Is it recruiter get paid from the commission of new hire based on his/her new annual salary?

That happened long time ago. I raised this in a post because i do find the recruiters are not behaving very professionally and engaging with candidates. 'Too much on their plate' or 'too many to manage' are sinply excuses imo. Who isnt very occupied with work? Everyone is equally busy and dropping a simple email update to someone you have spoken to before shows the good work ethics and will definitely be remembered by the candidates (like i said they are all their potential clients in future). I guess it's a culture thing in recruitment field, and unfortunately it's not something i appreciate. By saying this, I myself are in the client facing role and have to constantly engage differently stakeholders at the same time.

To answer your ques if i have followed up the recruiter back then, yes i had (2-3 times) and still did not get any response (ghosted i guess). I even got my friend in the same company to help emailing the recruiter and still.....
I had also came across recruiters who never responded after speaking to me despite telling me that they would give m me an update the following week and then totally forgot abt it, i could not be bothered with those as well. If you cant action on something then do not ever say that you will give an update the following week when you are not actually meaning it, right?

I have also seen on linkedin posts about recruiters complaining abt candidates never responded to them or showed up during interviews - I LOL-ed at that cause it seems like a karma to them.

This post has been edited by ziling60: Feb 21 2022, 11:46 PM

7000 candidates, placed more than 600 of them in jobs

Does it mean your screening criteria is 10%, or only 10% are good enough to fit into the job?

Do you find any need to verify last drawn salary? If so, how often?

I also have experience like this. When the recruiters need something from you, they will bug you alot. When you ask for status, they will ignore you. Even after trying to follow up a few times, still ignored. I think sometimes, they are waiting for the other candidate to confirm, so you will be ignored until they have confirmation.

How do u deal with candidates who don't want to share their current pay?

This....

Candidates that assume they got the job from the first screen. Sometimes recruiters reach out to offer candidate a job opportunity; an open invitation to apply for the role or it could be an exploratory call to share more about the company but it doesn't mean you're hired (yet).
Common questions are " Who will report to me WHEN I join?" "Can I have a free parking WHEN I join" "I want a sign on bonus because..."

not uncommon at all

I'm a strong believer in providing closure to candidates. Even on my busiest weeks, I will make sure I reject them on our ATS (we use Greenhouse) every Friday evening so they can get closure and move on. For some that ghost candidates, maybe their companies do not have a ATS system and they do everything manually so they simply do not have time or just plain laziness.

First question; it's possible but not directly to a IT role, most will transition to a MIS/Data Analytics kind of role first before pivoting further to more Technical roles. I understand most of them will take simple coding classes to transition into full software engineering. Some grey roles are like Data Analyst, Business Analyst, Sales Operations.

Q2
It depends!

For a Recruitment agency, it is a % of the candidate's annual salary. Big firms like Robert Walters, Michael Page charges 20-25% of the candidates annual salary, out of which the Consultant takes a 10% cut on top of a pretty good monthly base (RM4.5K-10K) . Smaller recruiting agencies charges clients anything from 8% - 18%, out of which 30-50% goes to the Consultant as commission however small agencies tend to pay low base salaries (RM3K -5K).

For in house recruiters from clients (IBM, Accenture, Nestle, Mondelez etc), they get a fixed monthly salary (anything from RM3K to RM20K) and the usual annual bonus just like everyone else (so they're less aggressive compared to agency recruiters as they're not incentivised to close candidates monthly).

Absolutely no incentive for the recruiter to low ball you of course but most of the time, they have to work within a budget.

I've moved from an agency (7 years to an in-house role now, 3years and counting)

This post has been edited by mimikw: Feb 22 2022, 09:15 PM

As honest as I can. The reason why I need to know is so we won't waste each other's time and in order for me to manage (my clients's) expectation better. Also, I'd want to know if the candidate's legit. Based on 10 years of speaking to candidates, most legit candidates often do not have problem sharing their current pay. Those who refused to share are usually those who are expecting to get an instant jump of 40-100% of their current pay which is totally not doable or those who're unemployed.

Sorry yes, it's company policy. I can't act based on trust alone, not in this current world

you have no idea how many inconsistencies I've come across over the years from what they claim vs what's on paper.

This post has been edited by mimikw: Feb 22 2022, 09:24 PM

I'm sorry I could be wrong. 25% of people leave for more money and 75% is a combination of everything else (progression, benefits, learning opportunities, flexibility, international opportunities which are all related to culture in a way). My company does pay top of range so the most common reason for leaving I hear (during exit interviews) > culture & work life balance. Or maybe it takes alot to admit you're simply leaving for more money.

Free food etc stems from the culture itself to remind employees that the company got their back. It's nice to know that your company is invested in your well-being work aside. Do you think these perks come cheap? Why don't they give employees the monetary value on top of their base salary instead? Simply because people are generally more appreciative of little touches like this vs just cold cash and word of mouth has a strong ripple effect.

Pay audit - We just did! they've decided a company wide salary adjustment due to the soaring inflation.

It's an estimation - I speak to an average of 15-20 candidates a week over the last 10 years minus some holidays. In agency I close about 50 roles a year, internal I do 70 a year so about there. I move 50% of the candidates I spoke with into the funnel so about 3500, of which 600 got hired. Only 17% made it through the funnel, not the best stats for a recruiter honestly lol tho I have much better success rate internally. A lot of wild goose chases during my agency days.

The sense of entitlement, oh my

It wasnt even through a job application. They got the contacts from database and spoke abt a different job opportunities and then became not reachable. There was no job application to begin with and for the auto rejection email to come through, if u get what i mean?

What would be the best strategy if someone is relatively underpaid within their industry?
Looking at the statement, only people who aren't underpaid will qualify and will accept the job.

If a recruiter finds someone who is qualified by years of experience and professional certs, but just because he/she is underpaid relative to others, recruiter give max 20% of increment
Even if they accept this job theyl probably jump soon to match market rate.

The scenario sounds really familiar - is this an agency recruiter?
Most agencies have big databases and work with a number of clients; when they get a new role they contact their top 10 candidates in mind/from the database, they pitch the role to them and sends their CVs to the clients, should the client reject these profiles, some recruiter couldn't be bothered to end the loop by providing an update to the candidate. This is not the worst yet; I know explicitly a handful of agency recruiters who share CVs to clients without the consent/first speaking to the candidates. If the client reject, the candidates wouldn't know anything anyway; the recruiter will only call the candidate and start pitching the role if they client wants to meet for an interview. PDPA is not a big thing in Malaysia so many opt for short cuts to make commission, should this happens in Europe, the recruiter can be fired.

For your case, if this is an agency recruiter > work with another agency or give feedback hoping they'll improve

This post has been edited by mimikw: Feb 23 2022, 09:02 AM

Unfortunately yes. The market is hot and competitive so it's pretty rare to see underpaid employees but sometimes these candidates are GOLD.
Negotiation is key - while most of the time, it's 20% max, I'd suggest you provide data to justify the steeper hike (Company leaned on higher bonus, lower base? Took a pay cut before to join start up? Company isn't doing well so did not get any increment for 2-3 years? You haven't moved for 5 years? Provide any new training/learning certifications to justify why you should be raised to a new bar. Be kind to the recruiter/HR person because they're your gate keeper to get the additional layer of approvals for you > global C&B team, HRD. Usually we are authorised to offer up to a certain band (anything beyond that will need additional approvals from global).

Should all these fail, don't give up just yet - ask for a sign on bonus or a pay raise upon confirmation. Never accept the offer the first time it's delivered to you (a smart recruiter will always allow room for negotiation). Jual mahal, ask for time to sit on it. Don't let them trick you " If you don't take this by tomorrow, the deal is off the table" - it's a LIE. No way they want to start the search all over again unless they have a strong second after you.

One final tip that works 90% of the time, have a competing offer/or simply let them know you're at final stage with 3 other companies - We freak out when candidates have multiple offers and most of the time, we will match whatever you have in the market (without bother checking your other offer letter).

This post has been edited by mimikw: Feb 23 2022, 09:06 AM

if candidate never reveal their current compensation package, there is nothing to claim or compare no? expected salary alone should be sufficient. can match or cannot match.

else underpaid candidate like someone question in this thread can have difficult time. anyway, do you have opening for current company for it/tech role? 😅

No blanket answer to this honestly. Imagine the havoc if everyone does that. How do corporates ensure proper governance and accountability?
Recruiters can't have the power to offer anything the candidate wants.

I can provide an example of a company that try to mitigate bias and avoid underpaying candidates.

Meta -
For any roles Meta hire into, all interviewers do not have visibility to the candidate's current package. Candidates will be sent for screening and after the loop interview, Recruiter will organise a debrief where the interviewers will level the candidate based on interview feedback collectively.
If they find candidate to be within Level 4 for example, recruiter will obtain candidate's current salary information and make offers based on a range for Level 4 for that job family in that particular country. If the candidate's current is way below the range, the offer will still be the MIN of the range even if that means a 50% increase for him. If the candidate's salary is over the range, the recruiter will also offer the candidate the MAX of the range which could mean a potential cut for the candidate (this mean the candidate is overpaid for his experience. If the candidate's current is at the median of the range, they will offer a nice 15% increment. Fair?

This post has been edited by mimikw: Feb 23 2022, 04:29 PM

I have to say this a well constructed feedback. Usually If I ask similar questions like this to friends in HR, theyl always give me one sided view statement.

Appreciate it thanks!

Hi, do you know about Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF)?
Can employee request to utilize the fund for training purpose?

Thanks for the insight. At least now I understand from recruiter perspective.
Anyway UGPM

Good sharing, I can definitely say I benefitted from something similar like this as well.

Hey man, hope I could get some insights from you as well given your experience.

What would your advise be for someone (my wife) who has been a pharmacist for the past 8 years or so (currently now an area manager of a pharmacy franchise) who just hates the profession and would really want to get into a corporate post in another industry, be it consumer products, healthcare, or others?

Would the best way to go about it is to get in touch with as many recruiters as possible? We've tried the usual job submissions in JobStreet and LinkedIn but responses were not really favourable somehow.

Thanks in advance!

Got vacancy or not??

Hello (I am she btw lol)

Probably a good move honestly!
Tip: Ask her to furnish up her CV and message any Recruiter from Hays/Robert Walters/Michael Page/Barrington James that does Healthcare & Lifesciences (Search Consultant/Senior Consultant - Healthcare/ Life Science). Many of the pharmaceutical companies tend to hire ex-pharmacist as Pharmacovigilance Specialist (God I couldn't spell it right - thanks Google) or Medical Affairs Managers, provided she has good inter-personal/communication skills. BJ is a good place to start as they only specialises in Healthcare roles.

I wouldn't go Jobstreet honestly - JS is generally better for lower level positions.

Hiiiiii Sorry boss, I'm here to offer input and share key learnings in the industry but not a job placer.
If you're super desperate, you can PM me your CV and I can help forward to my ex-colleague (in agency) but no promises!!

Hi - I'm sorry I honestly do not know. I only know companies pay a levy and they can claim training expenses from HRDF. Process wise differs from companies.

Probably a common misconception in Malaysia; Recruiters = HR.
Recruiters are not involved in HR policies actually - We are specialist in Talent Acquisition. For bigger companies, there are several HR pillars ; Recruitment, Comp & Benefits, Organisational Development/Employee Branding/Engagement, L&D - So I'm not a Jack of all trades



This post has been edited by mimikw: Feb 24 2022, 10:19 AM

I just saw this post. Can't deny it's an overly competitive market out there but I beg to differ on your friend's statement. This may be controversial; many recruitment firms think clients are more important because they are the source of $$$ but I strongly believe candidates are equally as/if not more important because they're your "product"; without product, you cannot make a sale.

Clients only come to you because you have good candidates so I firmly believe in offering the best possible service to your candidates. What makes the candidates choose your agency over 1000 other agencies? It's the personal touch. If they like you (esp senior candidates), they will work exclusively with you (nobody wants their CVs to be in the hand of 10 recruiters)

Even if s/he might not be a good fit for this role now, this candidate could be GOLD for your next role in your next 10 years career as a Recruiter. Happens to me in soooo many instances where I reject them (politely) but stayed in touch and eventually place them somewhere else the following years.
So yeah, as a Manager who manages a team in an agency before, I always have my team to close off any ongoing candidates when a role is closed. No such thing as leaving them hanging after speaking to them

This post has been edited by mimikw: Feb 24 2022, 09:08 PM

Oops hahaha, thanks sis!

Well noted on your advise, will give those a try especially BJ

Yeah that is true. Which is why I was also quite pissed off with their recruitment agency. They initially submitted my resume 2 years back to a company. That didn't result to anything as I wasn't a fit for it. 1 year later, I submitted my own resume to another role to the same company and got the job. Then the agency had the gall to call me and ask me to ensure that they got their commission even though they didn't do jack shit.

What sort of resume format do local recruiters normally favor?

What are the most important things u look for in CV?

In what order please?

Hello TS, thanks for sharing.

I am currently working as a data scientist in a major international bank with multiple past job experience (last one parent company is china largest e-commerce as well as some regional tech startups).

On a week to week basis, I have been receiving PMs from recruiters on LinkedIn - unfortunately none of those recruiter are offering what I’m looking for. (I got multiple recruiter from bytedance but I’m trying to avoid going back to china 996 culture)

I’ve been mass applying for roles in FAANG (primarily SG office) over the years but didn’t get any feedback from their internal recruiter. I have also took the initiative to private message some recruiter/internal staff from their companies but most of them ended up asking me to apply via their career site. I suspect the biggest invisible wall is the need to obtain working visa for Malaysian, which is becoming harder than ever due to Covid and Singapore change of policy.

Personally, I’m quite confident I have the technical skill set (and the soft skills) to score the interview for roles I have applied for, but I’m having trouble getting any interview to begin with. Do you have any advice on what can I do to improve my odds on scoring an interview with these companies?

Seeing your reply to some forumer earlier to drop you their CV for you to pass to your ex-colleague - Do you mind taking in my CV if it helps?

This post has been edited by LovelyPotato: Feb 24 2022, 04:49 PM

How about energy industry?

Besides searching for jobs through Linkedin, company's websites, recruitment agencies likes Michael Page, Hays and etc, what is the best way to find another role in another energy company?

I even drop emails to recruiters in recruitment agency, but to no avail.

For me, something that can be copied and paste easily cos during my agency days, we have specific template for our clients so it looks neater/more professional. Those with weird tables/graphs so are hard to work with.

The usual. Work experience, education experience from your most recent role (top) to least recent (bottom).

1. Companies & Roles (the bigger the names, the easier to place!) - sorry this is true in many cases.
2. Career trajectory (the best resume showcases trajectory - a tell-tale sign of a solid performer. We like to see how a candidate get promoted from role A to role B to role C through the years not a job hopper. If you hop one time too many, do state reason for places you stayed for less than a year.
3. Key achievements - this is an area where most candidates got wrong. Many list down their job description instead of achievements. I do not need to know what a Sales Manager/Solution Architect JD is - I know at the back of my hand and I probably look at 50 CVs of candidates doing the same job.
What sets the resume apart is your achievements; and they have to be specific/measurable. "Achieved cost saving within the Logistic services department by 20% within the first 12 months by implementing xxxx" "Successfully reduced XXX consumption from xx% to xx% YoY" "Overachieved Sales target at 130% every consecutive quarter in 2018 and was awarded as the Top Sales Employee company wide".
4. Only applicable for grad level roles - Education background/internships

Can I also add...
One thing I don't really care.
Master's/MBA - honestly it's not THAT important. I rarely, rarely ever get any hiring managers asking for Master's Degree holders (I'm referring to all Junior Executives, Managerial, Senior Managerial, Directorial roles). PhD? (Never ever). They're probably useful in a certain way but EXPERIENCE over EDUCATION, anytime. So yeah save your money!!!

This post has been edited by mimikw: Feb 24 2022, 09:31 PM

why does hr professionals still asking for payslip

Sorry, I do not have much experience in this industry honestly.

1. If job boards/agencies are not working out, how about getting referrals from your own network? Do you guys have any networking events/groups/? Get introduced by someone gets you to the door.

2. Who are your Top 5 direct competitors and Top 5 indirect competitors? Search for their Recruiters on LI and PM them? They'd likely want you but you may want to request for their secrecy when handling your CV as the circle is small.

Already replied this question a few times along the way. In summary, company's policy

For Q2, indirect competitors can be clients or any companies that used to work together for the same projects? Most of my projects are located overseas and their presence in Malaysia is relatively weak. I normally do not receive any response after I apply at indirect competitors overseas. lol.

Not really looking into direct competitors as I wish to move out from supplier side, which I am working currently.

Do companies try to verify the claimed salary or payslip?

YEAY!!!

I was having sleepless nights thinking about forking out the MBA costs haha

Thanks. These are really valuable insights, and makes sense too

I guess really depends on roles? Maybe it's helpful in research/academics? For all Commercial and Corporate roles I've worked on before - Masters Degree is always only a good to have, never a requirement.

Just curious, around how many % of IT firm able to offer >10k for developer in Malaysia?
Seems like that's not many option left if hit 5 figures range?

This post has been edited by ragk: Feb 28 2022, 06:28 PM

You will have to go through your company for it. HRDF fee is paid by your company for purpose of trainings, so I guess to talk to your HR and see how to claim it.

That's because FAANGs in SG are more front office / marketing side, so they hire very little engineers or roles of it. Most of them would either be based in India or Silicone Valley, which is why you don't get traction there or the recruiters don't respond.

It’s a shame really. I am having a hard time finding company that have great data infrastructure which in turn can enable me to grow further on my career path but I’m hitting this wall at this point.

Most of the companies within Malaysia just doesn’t have that kind of backend infra to cultivate this kind of job.

It's a growing field, certainly. Most startup here have pretty basic data infra (some data scientist still only have excel to work off from), but consider it another way, because its so new, that is where you have an opportunity to stamp your mark on it.

For FAANGs, a lot of them rely on internal referrals via other employees, so you would do well to go contribute to areas where you can get visibility, like opensource forums, start a blog about data science, contribute to sites like stackoverflow or where ever data scientist contribute to.

I used to help in hiring for software engineers, and most of them got in because they already have a good rapport with the current heads / colleagues, other than some that came in with very niche skills or languages.

Malaysia is a greenfield in this space especially with data (from governance, to business knowledge, to the maths and finally programming). It is ripe for the taking and you can definitely make a name for yourself here locally. I used to talk to the chief data scientist at my past company (bank) where he used to tell me that data folks have 3 bubbles of skills, maths, programming and business. Most of them tend to be strong in 2/3 but its very rare to find someone who is strong in all 3 (he was one of them but depending on your experience and field of expertise). At the end of the day, he used to tell me that it was through building things up from scratch is when you truly get to know and grow yourself to fill out the 3 bubbles.

Personally I’ve worked in start-up tier company and e-commerce with Alibaba backend support (worked closely with Alibaba team actually) and currently with one of the largest international bank with strong Asia presence.

I would say I have experienced through 3 tier of analytic infra. First is the messy but are working toward proper datalake/data warehousing. They have the data and you can get the data easily if you know the right place to ask for. Most of the SME/startup are currently in this stage.

Second is one with strong backend support (Alicloud) with proper data governance. Something FAANGs would have. The more established companies I can see in Malaysia with this sort of infra that isn’t FAANG is Shopee, Lazada, Grab, AirAsia and probably some telco like Axiata. There are more choices in SG as well such as Gojek and bytedance, but still very limited by nature.


Third is one with huge amount of data, but with all the legacy tool and the massive amount effort needed to consolidate them causing it to move extremely slowly. On top of that, regulated industry makes it even harder. This type of company requires a huge amount of time dealing with bureaucracy. Most international companies is at this stage.

Personally I still prefer the second type because of the ease of access to data and tooling, where you can achieve the most with the least effort in trying to hack through everything just to get the result.

Currently I’m looking to develop my skill set on building ML model that can productionize, which is the main reason why I’m looking for FAANGs as the next career jump.

Most of the existing SME does not need this level of model and do not have the proper data pipeline that can make it work as well. BI would be a better use of their resource as compared to data science. This leaves me with second and third type and bureaucracy is an unnecessary blocker for technical development.

Sorry TS might have swayed away from your AMA.

This post has been edited by LovelyPotato: Feb 28 2022, 10:06 PM

Very true sharing.
Thanks a lot for your insights.

I just checked on the jobs site for one of the FAANGs, plenty of data science roles available on the job portal for Singapore. Which have you tried applying for?

I’ve tried applying Meta, Google, Apple, Twitter and Amazon. Netflix have very limited DS role in SG. Unfortunately none of them gotten back to me.

I’m also currently trying to apply to some other MNC within SG to kickstart the move to SG first, which will then make the next step easier as compared to jump directly from Malaysia.

I guess a referral really makes the most difference here.

Any recommendations?

Some brief background about me:-

1. 2+ years in auditing
2. Accounting degree in local U
3. With ACCA

Should I continue with my current job to get the title as a certified accountant (need to have at least 3years of experience), or should I try out in other places? i.e. commercial firm

Quite stressful currently 😶

how likely the employer will accept someone from one industry jump to another industry ( manager level) but same job function .

Yesss. Not only Malaysia; many international companies are offer >10K fully remote roles for full stack dev.
there is a global shortage for software engineers.

FAANG - check out Blind for fully remote jobs. plenty of them but you need to master Leetcode (correct me if 'm wrong?) My company has a dedicated Recruiting team in Singapore hunting for SWE in SEA to ship over to California under H1B visa as SWE are soooo expensive to hire in Silicon Valley.

Really depends on what you're looking for - I can't really advise what's the best career move if I do not know you well enough. If you want to move out of audit, leave as a AM? It gives you better choices out there. An auditor with 4 YoE can practically go anywhere and still get hired.

If you're looking at monetary gains, I'd go for the FP&A/Financial Planning route vs Accounting. Most accounting roles are now taken over by COE in Cyber and can be pretty mundane.

Hi there, thanks for your willingness to share.

Can I seek your kind indulgence in sharing:

1. What made of the better CVs? How do you consider one's CV as good or bad?

2. Is asking for a sign-on bonus practice common in the Malaysian landscape?

Thanks.

Edit: Sorry, didn't go through the entire thread and not sure if this has been asked before. I will read it up if it has been posted before.

This post has been edited by tehoice: Mar 4 2022, 12:28 PM

Hi, thank you so much for opening this. I have a few question on mind and am wondering whether I am in the right direction, and how do I compare with peers around my age and those who are in my industry?

I am 26 years this year, currently just got an increment to RM3.3k. started with RM3k and worked for almost 2 years in this company.

However, I just got head hunted of an offer of around RM 4.1k, with health benefits that is 8x better than my previous company.

The role I am in is the finance field (invoice processing etc.).

I am looking to advance in to an Analyst(Credit/Data) role in the future, thought of getting myself certified with Tableau first. Will this assist in better opportunities in the future?

Really appreciate it your time!

Thanks!