Hi friends,

I have slowly realized how dangerous it is to focus on the S'pore (tech) job market for *too long*.

I'm an analytical job seeker, paying attention to lots of details. I try to discover the various subtle perceptions of recruiters on
job seeker candidates. After playing the S'pore IT job market for 5 years, i have tested a few assumptions of what's important to a
recruiter, what turn them off, what white lies are acceptable, what claims could jerpodize your credibility …

* well known employers/customers help your credibility
* leadership (technial lead, project lead, team lead …) experience is more impressive than developer experience
(“All fail” is the answer.)
* a long skill list is ok and common, even if your experience in each is limited to one project or a few weeks
* if you have used, say, java, on and off for 5 years, u can claim “5 years” with total honesty even if you didn't learn any java
skill for 60% of that duration.
* financial domain knowledge helps u get financial IT jobs

Now I realize many assumptions fail outside Singapore. You can decide which assumptions above fail. My Answer hides somewhere in
this email.

Only after I came to US and spent a few weeks job hunting online, talking to recruiters, amd real interviews, do I have enough
first-hand experience to validate my assumptions. The kind of track record I build in Singapore don't sell in US. I am building a
track record for the job market in this country. In Japan or another country, the sales kit (ie our track record) is perhaps
different again.

So why is it dangerous to focus on your home country of S'pore? Why must I prepare for job hunting in other countries? Well, S'pore
is a small, externally-dependent economy, some would say “in decline”. How many recessions have I experienced since I came to SG in
1991? Well, one starting in 1997 and another starting in 2002. Each took 2 years to recover.

Now my question: In How many years would you see a 30% drop in salary in your IT sub-sector? I wish the answer is 50 years but in
reality my sector (Unix system admin) has already seen a 20% drop since I started in 2000. Some may dispute my statistics but I
don't think u can get any real protection against a 30% salary drop during your career lifetime.

What to do? Not everyone would consider jobs overseas, but sometimes circumstances change so much over time that u have very poor
choices staying in your home country. That's when u get the Reality Bite — u are not prepared for international job hunting. The
worst thing to wake up to is, your track record, because u can't rebuild it overnight like u can rebuild your resume.

Tan Bin