Social Service Agencies, NGOs and Charities

Graduates keen on helping the community can find their calling in social service agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and charities. With around 140 international not-for-profit organisations in Singapore, catering to a variety of social, humanitarian and environmental issues, there are plenty of options for graduate employees.

Depending on the area of expertise and the role that you are considering, there may be a need for specialist knowledge, skill sets and certification.

Whatever your role is, employers in this sector look for a few definite traits: Passion and commitment to the cause. While salaried positions in this sector tend to be on the lower scale compared to the corporate sector, employees working with NGOs and non-profits derive their motivation from the intrinsic satisfaction gained from serving and helping others.

Potential job options

• Community relations

• Environmental activism

• Services (e.g. children, youth, family, elderly, special needs and healthcare)

• Social work

• Volunteer development

Public Sector Scientific Research and Development

The public sector is Singapore’s largest employer, consisting of different ministries, statutory boards, and a variety of organisations such as the Public Service Division, the Singapore Armed Forces and the Home Team. Employees in this sector often find their roles to be a satisfying and fulfilling one.

Depending on the role and ministry that you are hired into, your job scope and the skill sets required may vary. In general, though, all public sector employees must possess a passion to serve the community, good teamwork and communication skills, as well as the maturity to draw up and execute national policies.

As a public sector employee, you will benefit from frequent training for upskilling and job security, and may be offered flexible working hours should the need arise. However, do be prepared for longer working hours during peak periods, such as before project deadlines and launches of new initiatives.

Many graduate employees enter the public sector through graduate programmes organised by the individual agencies, but departments and organisations also hire graduates directly. Do regularly check in with the ministries that you are interested in or the job portal, Careers@Gov, for new positions available.

Potential job options

• Government agencies

• Ministries

• Statutory boards

• Uniformed services

Due to Singapore’s vibrant biomedical sciences research ecosystem, there are plenty of job opportunities in areas such as clinical sciences, bioengineering, pharmaceutical as well as molecular and cell biology.

Most candidates look to research institutes, academic institutions, or hospitals as some of the primary employers in this industry, but do not forgo the opportunities offered by the corporate sector either. For instance, the cosmetics, F&B and FMCG industries are also major employers of science graduates.

To join this industry as a graduate researcher, in-depth technical knowledge of your field is extremely important, and having a postgraduate degree under your belt may increase your employability.

Transferable skills are equally valuable to recruiters in this field, so take the time to develop soft skills such as logical thinking, problem solving and numerical abilities. As you will often be working in a team, good communication and interpersonal skills as well as efficient organisational skills, need to be prioritised as well.

Most major employers in this sector typically hire through online applications, but smaller research houses depend on word-of-mouth advertisements and speculative applications instead, so be sure to network regularly.

Potential job options

• Application development

• Cloud innovation

• Data analytics

• E-commerce

• Information security

• Infrastructure

• Project management

• Systems administration