IT Jobs: Non Local/PR Vacancies?

[2Good2Go2Waste]

I followed by girlfriend out here from the UK back in September in order to find some IT work and haven’t had too much success as yet.

My skills are in application development (Lotus Notes – I recently acquired CLP status – MS Access and VB) – plus have helped out on the Sys Admin side too. I am currently reading up on HTML and JavaScript with a view to designing some web sites.

I search for jobs via the Net (JobsDB, RecruitAsia, Monster and Asia1Careers), fire off the resume to a number of MNCs and apply to the odd job in the Press. All with no joy nor any feeback as to why.

Aside from learning Mandarin, becoming a Singaporean or acquiring a PR, has anyone any bright ideas how one breaks into the IT-job market out here?

Any pearls of wisdom would be much appreciated.

[JonnyCav]

Contact my agent, Sanjeev.  sanjeev@webecome.com

Send him your resume and tell him I (Jonathan) gave you his address.

Good luck

[2Good2Go2Waste]

Thanx Johnathon - will give your agent a try and will let you know how I get on.

[Dewd]

try http://www.recruit.net

[Slim Pickins]

I came here at the start of the year looking for IT jobs with R5 CLP(dev) and html/javascript, c/c++ and had no luck,
and only about 3 interviews -each one rejecting me as they really wanted a PR/Local.
Took me over 5 months to land a job (now doing Java - which I had taught myself during this period!)
The key is to just keep looking. It will take longer given the declining economic situation, and you should expect a somewhat lower salary to that which the UK offers, but if you keep going long enough you will eventually get lucky. Maybe.
Your going to need an income of at least $2.5k to get the EP (raised from $2k) , and based on the skills listed above it may be rather borderline. (IMHO you deserve at least $5k but can expect half that...) :-(
(Can you believe that some of the (contract) notes positions were only offering $2k - and they wanted a PCLP!)

[Slim Pickins]

btw: my own impression of most of the job sites on the web that I tried is that they arent worth the paper their printed on...

[HubbaHubba]

You can try acquiring a PR status through the Landed Permanent Residence scheme (LPR) which allows you to get a PR PRIOR to getting a job offer. After your LPR application is approved, you will need to find a job in S'pore WITHIN 2 years. That's much better than getting an EP, right? i.e. get a job offer first, apply for EP, etc.

The market is currently indeed in bad situation. But don't despair! The economy WILL pick up.