Career intelligence from the inside. Real stories from recruiters and candidates across Asia-Pacific.
I graduated from NUS in December and started applying for marketing roles in January. My lecturer told me the going rate for a fresh grad in marketing was around SGD 4,000 to 4,500. So when I got to the offer stage with a mid-sized agency in Tanjong...
I was a Regional Head of Operations for a European bank in Hong Kong. Fourteen years. Good performance reviews, decent relationships, the lot. Then in March they restructured the Asia desk and my role was "consolidated" into a global function...
I moved from Jakarta to Singapore two years ago. My husband got transferred and I was looking for finance roles here. Back home I was a Senior Accountant at a manufacturing company, so I thought it would be quite straightforward to find something...
My husband works for a Japanese trading company here. I came on a Dependant's Pass. I have a Letter of Consent so I'm allowed to work. I have ten years of experience in logistics management. I speak Japanese, English, and some Mandarin. Getting...
I had offers from two companies. One was a FAANG company — you can probably guess which one based in Singapore. L5 role, solid TC, all the usual perks. The other was a 40-person fintech that had just raised Series A. I took the startup. My...
I was in an interview for an operations role at a logistics company. Things were going fine. Standard questions about my experience, my approach to problem-solving, team management. All stuff I could handle. Then the interviewer asked: "What...
I've lived in both. Three years in Dubai, now two in Singapore. People ask me constantly which is better so here's the honest comparison. Spoiler: it depends entirely on what you care about. ## Money Dubai wins on take-home...
I've negotiated multi-million dollar deals for my company. I've sat across the table from difficult counterparts and held my ground for weeks. I once spent four months negotiating a JV in Shanghai that involved three legal jurisdictions and a...
I review about 50 CVs a day. Sometimes more. I don't read them in detail — not at first. I scan them. And there are a handful of things that make me move to the next one almost immediately. I'm not proud of how fast these...
I was a software engineer for six years. Mostly frontend. React, TypeScript, that kind of thing. Good at it, comfortable, but I kept finding myself more interested in the why than the how. Why are we building this feature? Who asked for it?...
I'm Dutch. Moved to Singapore three years ago on an EP. Before that I was in Amsterdam doing supply chain management for a logistics company. I thought the transition would be smooth — English-speaking country, international business hub, lots of...