A Singaporean In Australia

2 April 2015

As much as i espouse my satki-ness when I drive my satki black vios, as a Sinkie the other thing I enjoy is wearing a satki shirt and tie to work while driving my black vios. Once again, Nix has given me idea for new material, and as it is Friday, I have started a bit late on the beers (already 6pm!!!!) to write what is probably the 1000th article on "Yoda's advice on getting a satki graduate job in Australia" from my personal experiences and journey.

Like i told Nix, I don't have the experience of having to restart all over again that is shared by most migrants, and someone like Nix or Anfield Knight etc will be able to share this experience much better. And while it is partly because i jin satki, i won't kid myself like a PAP minister and start telling everybody how capable I am. I attribute it to sheer luck and just being in the right place at the right time, so to be honest, this isn't really "advice" per se, not like one of those fucking useless articles they send graduates on CPA Australia etc on "How to land your dream job - start networking, blah blah blah" and just telling you a whole lot of generic bullshit, taking up your mailbox space which could be used for JAV links, and then in the end just trying to get you to sign up for some fucking stupid program which i touch more on later.

This is more of a personal account, and my journey to getting my satki grad job. In summary, there isn't really an inspirational story. When I graduated, I had a job in Sinkie even though I had my PR (Graduate Visa). So obviously I went back to Sinkie and kept applying for entry into the Australia graduate programs from Singapore, using my friend's local address. Many more doors opened for me when i had the visa compared to when i applied as an international student, but the competition was so fierce it was fucking ridiculous.

I went for a couple of assessment centres, got through to a few interviews, but i think in total i would have put in 100 over applications and gotten less than 10 actual interviews in person. In the end, the job i got was interstate from my original city I studied university in, and there was a video interview and a case study question where they see how you analyse the case and logic. What the interview is like really depends on the type of job or company you are interviewing for and the soft skills they want. For the bigger companies, some of my friends got flown interstate to attend interviews so it differs all over. I flew back whenever I had to attend an interview in person, ended up staying at a friends place for around one month around April / May which is when most of the graduate interviews take place.

For those who aren't familiar with what a graduate program is, it is similar to what you call a management trainee program in Singapore, where you are taken in as a batch, given rotations across the company, and then at the end of the year, if you are okay, they place you somewhere permanent, otherwise, obviously, they ask you to fuck off (which is quite unlikely for most companies unless you really fuck up, because of the amount of $$ they invest in training you) however most university students should have known or at least be familiar with what it is because it would definitely be mentioned in your school at some time or another. I won't waste too much time talking about what the process of applying for the graduate program is etc because it differs for every company and its all on their careers website (or one of those dumb student association websites), but in general, for the most cheong hei process, it will involve:

you submit an online application that you have to write a long, grandmother story about (usually some shit about "What would you do in this situation? How would you show the company values of integrity and honesty?"etc). If they like what you can smoke bomb, then they call you for a telephone interview screening. Mai kan cheong and talk normally, appear interested etc. Then if you pass that, they usually have an assessment centre where a big group of grads go there to do some case studies, presentations, etc - almost like a day camp. Then if you get through, you will have a face to face interview with someone senior, sometimes two interviews, before you get the job offer (that usually commences around the start of the next calendar year around January - March, which is nice because it allows you to keep applying for other jobs).

This shows us, the skills you need, are being able to smoke bomb, write and speak well, and talk cock. That is all. Good grades and impressive CCA record / work experience get you the call in the first place, so it is very important as well. Those people who tell people grades aren't important are those who are jealous of those with good grades. After that, even if you work at McDonalds, if you can smoke bomb and speak so well and say your experience at Macs until like you saved the world, you have a very good chance of getting the job. Don't bother listening to those politically correct bull shit about how to get a job, really, sometimes it is a matter of luck. There are so many websites telling you all this generic bullshit, might as well don't write and waste bandwidth that can be used for JAV or pictures of Serina Wee....

Personally I learnt, don't anyhow hentam and save your energy for the jobs you are really interested in because you need to write and smoke a lot from the heart, and the recruiters usually can see through your bull shit, you just need to be able to bullshit more sincerely than others. If you apply for those jobs you actually like or find interesting, you will find it a lot easier to talk cock and probably get a higher success rate. This happened personally to me, I spent my time writing all those essays for all these companies i barely knew a shit about and how much i would love to work for them and understood their operations blah blah blah, and obviously didn't get anything, but personally, as i am interested in research and policy (for example), i got a lot of "hits" from these types of companies.

And a important word of caution, avoid by all means, the fucking bullshit they call the professional year program run by Navitas or those dodgy shit colleges and that fucking stupid excuse for a scam of a paid internship. What the fuck man, even in Malaysia or Singapore, where there is no human rights, you struggle to find suckers who will pay to work. All these angmohs really ji gou li at marketing it until they say they give you "work experience" by PAYING THEM TO WORK. No fucking logic at all. But with the tight job market for graduates, these fucking assholes are circling like vultures trying to take advantage of a vulnerable group, and there is a special place in hell reserved for them. But to be honest, if you can kena scam by this, you will struggle at work anyway.

So, that is all for now. I need to go and drink beer now, late liao. There's more shit but I would have to write a whole book and start my own fucking Navitas company if i went on. If any grads would like advice, I dunno, ask those experts or google and judge yourself, but if you need a reassuring word etc or just a personal account contact me through Nix or post in those EDMW forums and someone helpful (like me) will try to help. Usually there will also be those chee bye who complain people want to get spoonfed etc, but this is good training for the cheebye mouths you will need to tahan anyway at work....

Signing off with my loud exhaust,

Satki Yoda