I heard some happy news on Friday. The new girl in my office has resigned! Yippee! She’s been with my company for only 3 weeks but is now taking up an offer by DBS. Guess she saw Eon as a jumping stone to banking. Looks like my boss is going to have a headache hiring again… haha.
There was no concrete reason for me to dislike the new gal but i wasn’t happy with her presence ‘cos i felt her title – manager – was unjustified. The new gal was a newbie, with only 1.5 years of working experience and didn’t really know what a broker did either… so what qualified her to be a manager? Just because she came from a trade credit insurer??
I told my lunch buddy, KNg about it and he said it could ‘cos she’s an SMU grad. He said that he’s been interviewing some fresh grads recently and he noticed a distinct difference between the NTU & NUS grads, and the SMU ones.
He observed that SMU grads had better presentation skills, and they could sell themselves really well. When asked what did they learn in school, they would give this long citation of their credits & abilities. However, when probed further, he realised they didn’t know much but even then, they would try to bluff their way through.
The SMU grads were also more concerned about the titles they were given and showed an obvious preference for a grand sounding title.
NTU and NUS grads, on the other hand, were more humble of their abilities and if they really didn’t know the answer to a technical question, they will admit it and add that they were glad to have the opportunity to learn.
So which sort of grad to you think is better? I think that while it’s important to be able to sell yourself well, it’s not a good thing to boast and pretend to know something when you don’t. Also, when in a new environment, it’s NOT a good thing to try to stand out too much. If you’re truly talented, people will discover your capabilities and look up to you. But if u’re just bullshitting, you rub people up the wrong way.
KNg also told me that apparently SMU has a whole module covering interview skills. Not a bad idea i suppose as it will probably give fresh grads confidence when they go for interviews. However, though Singapore may have adopted a lot of western practices in the workplace, we’re nonetheless an Asian society and being brash and overconfident when you’re new is not something that’s going to be accepted in the near future.
Oh well, happy days are here again. Heehee.
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