Are we in an economic crisis or not?
Facebook user Delane Lim interviewed applicants for a job that pays $3k+ a month with 14 days annual leave and felt like he was being interviewed instead.
“There are jobs available and there are talents for sure. But these young talents are not hungry for a job. Many are not willing to be humble and not willing to suffer. They prefer to work smart than hard, unlike our older generation. I am pro-Singapore workforce but…. they make it harder for us to consider employing them.
So stop blaming companies for considering non-locals. We did try our best,” he wrote.
The 7 candidates
- Local Applicant A requested not to touch his on weekends and whenever possible to work from home instead of working on site. When told him he needs to work on occasional weekends and off in lieu may be given, he asked for overtime weekend allowance and told me it is the law.
- Local Applicant B said that our office is too far for her as she is staying in the east but willing to consider if we can provide transport allowances.
- Local Applicant C shared her last drawn salary was $6k and was expecting this job to match. She is only willing to take a 5-10% pay cut during probation and expect to be paid the same after clearing probation.
- Local Applicant D requested a team of junior staff to assist in his work because, in his previous company, he had assistants to do some of his work. Told him we can not afford, we are a lean SME. His reply, “o.. thank you for your time, I will skip this interview.”
- Local Applicant E asked if the company can give him 21 days of annual leave instead of 14 days because his previous company gave him. When told he can take no pay leave if his leave is not enough, he said he will reconsider this offer.
- Local Applicant F asked for a higher salary and when told we can only afford 3.6k per month, her response was… she will take the offer but would like the termination notice to be shortened to 1 week instead of 1 month… she was honest enough to say, “I am taking the job to survive for the time being while I wait for a better opportunity.”
- Local Applicant G asked for a guaranteed AWS + 1-month minimum VB to be written on the contract because his previous company, an MNC did that. Gave me a lecture on staff engagement and attracting talents and work-life balance.
Many SMEs have echoed similar sentiments.
For posting about the candidates’ responses, Delane Lim was CSI-ed and even had his addresses published on hardwarezone.
Delane Lim did have good news to share. Out of all the interviewees, he successfully hired 2 locals (one who is 35 years old and one who is 40 years old) and hope to hire another 2.
“Our training arm which we are hiring has 80% local workforce while another business unit has 70% local workforce,” Delane said.
“In times like this, we could have freeze hiring but we decided to provide some jobs to those who really need it. And I am happy my staff teams are behind me on this, even though we have to cut corporate operational expenses just to make sure everyone stay employed by workload sharing.”
https://www.facebook.com/delanelim/posts/10223802726358803
[irp posts=”1725″ name=”A Singaporean recounts her personal experience with hiring”]
