Singapore the 2nd Part 2

My second week in Singapore was spent job hunting. Also my 1 week stay at Juvy ended and I have to transfer to another of my friend's apartment. I asked Kenneth whom I worked with while in Manila to let me stay on his pad for some nights. He and his wife Jess were so welcoming and warm even though it was just a short notice. I am very grateful to the couple. Many thanks.

I have learned on my first job interview, with a head hunter, first is that the SG government placed stricter rules for expats (I dont know if it applies to all or just Filipinos). She shared to me that some of those renewing their passes were either rejected or downgraded (from an e-pass to an s-pass). Second, the hiring process takes a long time because of the skill matching and the negotiations between the company and them. From that point on I knew that 1 week is NOT enough to get a job. Thirdly, a sad realization, is that you have to sell yourself and sugarcoat your experience to get a better chance of being hired.

8 years of work experience have taught me how to do my work and forget the rest. In short it makes you focused on what you do and you tend to get rusty on the things that does not concern you. But as a job applicant, you have to step it up and know the things, that even though is part of what you do but really did not care while working. For example the company is looking for a Java developer. They just dont want a Java developer per se, they want to hire someone that knows Spring, Hibernate, and all the specific of those frameworks. I know some who does know java, spring and hibernate but during job interviews they sweeten the deal and study (review) because most of those stuff they ask during the interview is either concept stuff you dont really work on, or simply technical terms and definitions you have to memorize in order to appear knowledgeable. Im not saying they are not important but what Im saying is that focusing on definitions, you get to lose a lot of potentially good people (and Im not saying Im good, heheh).

It was fun though frantically sending and clicking the ""Apply" button from the different job sites even though I know that I don't qualify for that job posting. After a lot of applications, many email rejections and a few callbacks, my 2nd week ended. I am sad that I have not been successful in finding a job this time at SG. Maybe it was not time or the time I allotted is not enough.

Overall, it was a nice experience almost like a vacation for me. I thank all my friends who set aside their precious time to meet and share with me an afternoon or dinner. Thank you all, and maybe in the future I can return the favor too.