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Scope in Singapore
Q What are the prospects of working in Singapore in the IT sector? Also, my wife has been working in the hotel industry. Will she be able to find a job there? — PK Hyder A Singapore is going all out to embrace a liberal and friendly immigration policy to attract skilled Indian workers. Companies have brought in a large number of Indian professionals for IT specialisations, to Singapore. Their employment visas are not subject to any number of quotas either. The country is also looking for attracting more Indian students and sourcing Indian workers with special skills such as Indian chefs in a big way. 2600 Indian companies and 9 Indian banks have operations in Singapore. They have created greater job opportunities for skilled Indians. Besides sectors such as IT, there are opportunities for Indians in banking, manufacturing and even as teachers. Besides being a global financial hub, the country offers Indians the advantage of fast-track processing of papers and cultural comfort. Face it, head hunters scan Facebook
Q I am a third year student of engineering. My friends say that I should be very careful in terms of what I write in all these social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut as many big companies look for potential employees by doing their background check on these sites. Is it true? — Pulkit Garg This trend is slowly catching up in the IT sector which has seen a 15-18 per cent growth in terms of people recruited through this channel. This new channel for identifying potential resources is not restricted to the junior level intake but extends to senior professionals (including group managers and general managers) as well. As a matter of fact, 25-30 per cent of senior hiring comes through social media. For example, I read somewhere that HCL Technologies hires around 7-10 per cent of its overall employees from social media such as blogs and networking sites such as LinkedIn, a business-oriented site used for professional networking. They have a separate team of recruiters who scan blogs and websites such as Facebook. They use the social media to recruit more than 100 people a month. Wipro, for instance, launched its Innovation Isle in Second Life, a popular virtual world website. Prospective candidates will be able to submit their resume at Wipro’s virtual campus. Tata Consultancy Services also use similar social networks for recruitments. In the next two years, almost a third of the total recruitment will come from social media. However this will only be an additional means of recruitment and won’t replace tried and tested media such as campuses, consultants and job portals.
Q I am doing a course in hotel management. I hear that the retail sector is pays much better than the hospitality sector. Will it be a right decision if I change my line? — Lokesh Mehra However, the Indian hospitality sector is also booming like never before. To cater to the growing demand, many hotel companies like the Oberoi Group, Indian Hotels (Taj Group), WelcomeGroup, Ascott Group, Marriot, Starwood etc are planning to develop more five-star and budget hotels across the country. As the hospitality industry is witnessing a shortage of highly skilled manpower, these biggies are wooing hotel management graduates in a big way. Apart from
opportunities in hotels and F&B outlets, hotel management students like you can also look at careers in airlines, cruise liners, corporate guest houses, time-share resorts, institutional catering and the like. Now you decide. The writer is a noted
Q I am a housewife with a five year-old kid. I was working in the sales department of a cosmetics manufacturing company before marriage. But after my kid was born I had to leave my job. Now I want to go back to my work. Please guide. — Gauri Mishra You can also equip yourself by taking some relevant short-term courses so that you are armed with up-to-date skills for making a smooth re-entry. One of the websites you can explore for such jobs is www.avtariwin.com, a service dedicated to getting jobs to, what the firm calls “the woman-manager-turned-homebound-professional”.
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A Yes, that’s true. IT companies have started looking for prospective employees in popular social networking sites and blogs. 
A Young managers qualified to work in restaurants are being poached by the booming retail industry, leaving old patrons in the lurch. Hotel management graduates are finding greener pastures than having to wait in lounges or tables. According to the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), both the entry-level and mid-level staff are becoming difficult to get as retailers are pumping in big money with aggressive growth prospects to match. While the restaurant industry is worth Rs 200 crore, the retail industry runs to almost Rs 25,000 crore. Therefore, offering matching salaries at the entry level staff is almost impossible. An entry-level restaurant management trainee gets around Rs 8,000 -10,0000 p.m., while a similar entry level position with a retail chain can get one as much as Rs 22,000 in the current market. Besides, a better salary package, job perception is another reason why trained graduates prefer to get associated with a retail chain than with a restaurant chain. The skill requirement of both industries being the same, the former offers the added lure of higher self-worth and the ‘perception’ of a white collar job.
A A huge manpower crunch in retail has made homes an emerging campus for recruitment. Consulting and FMCG companies are forever in need of talent, which is sometimes found in the most unexpected of places. They are seriously looking at the large number of qualified professionals-turned-homemakers. Companies are now hiring married women with prior work experience who have had a career break as ‘they are less likely to hop jobs and can work part-time’. Women are perfect for the retail industry because they understand customer needs. The Chennai-based Interim Women Manager’s Interface Network (I WIN) has about 73 per cent women who are married and include CAs, MBAs, engineers, bankers and programmers. It’s a win-win situation for employees as well as the companies, since the latter get a qualified workforce for a concentrated time slot. For instance, the Future Group has 500 part-time openings exclusively for educated housewives across the country.
