Singapore Expats

Hi everyone!! I am a filipina and is a salesrep by profession. I am very intrested to live and work in Singapore, however i noticed that most of the hiring ads always mentioned the need for someone who can speak mandarin and should be PR or singaporean National. Does this mean that i would have a hard time finding a job if i cant speak mandarin?

yes, it would be more difficult if you dont speak the lingo, otherwise how you gonna sell?

yeah right..i was there for a week to test the waters and after realizing that i enrolled in a mandarin tutorial. i would probably be back on Feb. 2009 to look for a job.

I suppose it depends on what you are sellin and to whom but my husband works in the recruitment industry and none of the sales staff in his office speak in any other language than English when they are making sales calls.

Most of then can speak another language but it is not used in their day to day business. Not sure if this helps.

ON the other hand, I spend 14 years in the recruitment industry here and unless you are a headhunter speaking to senior level personnel, I found the 90% of my staff spoke mandarin or dialect 90% of the time when talking to our clients. Not sure who's kidding whom here. Even as an HR Manager I find myself letting my HR Exec make most of my phone calls until she advises me that their English of an acceptable enough standard to be able to carry on an intelligent conversation with me.

No ones kidding anyone here, I'm just telling it like it is. Maybe that was 15 years ago but like I said, in my husband's office, although they can ALL speak multiple languages, they make their sales calls in English.

thanks to both of you for the valuable information. I already enrolled in Mandarin as i know it will come handy when i get there .

snowqueen, I doubt it's changed that much in only 4 years since I left that industry. And, I am not retired. I'm an HR Manager of a medium sized SME today and still deal with recruiters, hence my comment about letting my HR Exec field the calls until she can ascertain what level of English that they are able to speak. (Course if you husband is working in an office of Headhunters from Aus & the UK and are working the financial district it's a different story) but how many Recruitment Agencies have you dealt with and how many has your husband worked for here in order for you to make such a sweeping statement? (or were you generalizing because of "only one" company that your husband works for?)

alyntoi wrote:Hi everyone!! I am a filipina and is a salesrep by profession. I am very intrested to live and work in Singapore, however i noticed that most of the hiring ads always mentioned the need for someone who can speak mandarin and should be PR or singaporean National. Does this mean that i would have a hard time finding a job if i cant speak mandarin?

Yo alyntoi don't fred out yet, you wanna to sale you gotta to learn the hard way, wanna to stay in this industries you gotta speak our lingo else you can totally forget it, that why multi-billionare Jim roger put his kids in chinese kindergarden school in singapore. By the way you gotta to be PR or SG inorder to work here, check out ICA website for more details

cheers

touchbyangel512 wrote:By the way you gotta to be PR or SG inorder to work here, check out ICA website for more details

cheers

hello??? you are giving out wrong information!!! you dont have to be a PR or SG to work in singapore.

touchbyangel512 wrote:

alyntoi wrote:Hi everyone!! I am a filipina and is a salesrep by profession. I am very intrested to live and work in Singapore, however i noticed that most of the hiring ads always mentioned the need for someone who can speak mandarin and should be PR or singaporean National. Does this mean that i would have a hard time finding a job if i cant speak mandarin?

Yo alyntoi don't fred out yet, you wanna to sale you gotta to learn the hard way, wanna to stay in this industries you gotta speak our lingo else you can totally forget it, that why multi-billionare Jim roger put his kids in chinese kindergarden school in singapore. By the way you gotta to be PR or SG inorder to work here, check out ICA website for more details

cheers

Touched!

please get your facts straight before posting anything about immigration. A lot of posters use this site because most of us research our information before posting here. You would be wise to do the same.

Unless, that is, you like this postion.....



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