Career 01 (Sep 08 - Mar 10)

[kennynah]

How will you do this? Simple. You’re going to close the deal with an outstanding interview. Then you’ll seal the deal with a post-interview follow-up call that will leave your prospective employer asking for more.

i think, it is not always applicable using this approach in Asia... the prospective employer may not appreciate such "aggressiveness" or they could misconstrue the act as being "desperate"....

but what should be done, is to send an email or a message, re-thanking the interviewer for the time for the discussion...and leave it at that... this approach does not make the prospect employer feel "pressured" and it shows off your great personality...

but having said that....personally, previously i did call up my prospect boss after an interview....and i got that job....

[millionairemind]

damn cham... ageism in Singapore..

Aug 19, 2009
PhD holder now a cabby
Online buzz over former researcher's blog on his exit from A*Star unit
By Amresh Gunasingham

COULD this be Singapore's most well qualified taxi driver?

Dr Cai Ming Jie became an SMRT cabby last November after spending 16 years as a researcher at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star).

His career switch has become a talking point online after he started a blog earlier this year. Alongside his experiences as a cabby, he takes issue with the circumstances of his departure from IMCB last May.

An SMRT spokesman confirmed that the former researcher is a driver with SMRT Taxis, but Dr Cai declined to add more beyond this: 'All that needs to be said is on the blog online...It should be IMCB that needs to be asked questions, if any.'

The China-born Dr Cai, who became a Singapore citizen, obtained a PhD in molecular biology from Stanford University in 1990. The Straits Times learnt that he did a two-year postdoctoral fellowship after leaving Stanford at the University of Washington, under famed genetist Professor Lee Hartwell, who won a 2001 Nobel Prize in physiology.

He joined IMCB two years later and worked as a principal investigator in the field of cell genetics up till his departure.

A spokesman for A*Star, meanwhile, said renewal of all its researchers' contracts is based on a number of factors, including the time taken to train PhD students, their performance and their contributions to the research institutes and the agency in general.

Dr Cai's work, like that of all A*Star researchers, was assessed by an external Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), which recommended his contract be terminated.

Still, in spite of the submission of countless curriculum vitaes and applications to universities, government agencies and companies since he was told he would be let go in 2007, Dr Cai failed to get a successful response.

The former researcher now drives a four-year -old Toyota Crown. 'At a time like this, the taxi business is probably the only business in Singapore that still actively recruits people,' he said.

[kennynah]

well...i think a brain good enough to obtain a PhD from Sandford Univ... is good enuf to decide if becoming a cabby is meaningful....

[iam802]

a common remark I get from the article above is, "He would probably do better (financially) if he gives tution".

[kennynah]

he'd probably do better if he just renounced the citizenship and return to china ....

[millionairemind]

a common remark I get from the article above is, "He would probably do better (financially) if he gives tution".

This one I TOTALLY AGREE. One of my nephew is paying BIG BUCKS (father paying la ) to a phD in Physics to be coached in Mathematics... I heard per student rate is $50/hr... and it is group tuition of 4 students.

[kennynah]

$50/hr is considered inexpensive... i used to know a chap, who is not a PhD, who charges $60/hr ..becos he used to say..."1 min = $1"

[millionairemind]

$50/hr is considered inexpensive... i used to know a chap, who is not a PhD, who charges $60/hr ..becos he used to say..."1 min = $1"

To me, all tuition is useless and pointless... if the kid is of average intelligence, willing to pay attention in school and willing to work hard, Y the need for tuition?

[kennynah]

we share the same sentiment about this... chances are becos you and i never needed tuition before and we could get by in school....

these days, tuition is not only to revise school's curriculum... some tuition are meant to offer an edge to the students who wish to acquire more knowledge beyond school's syllabus... some tuition programs are tuned to developed mental faculty further beyond what schools attempt to achieve for students...

for these latter tuition classes, i am all for these children to attend...

those children who view tuition as make up classes should be spanked and whipped out of their daylights...wasting parents' money, as well as their time in school.... but more critically, they must be punished into learning that their need to adopt a correct attitude towards attending classes in school...

[Poles]

i think we most important is to cultivate self-learning ability.
we have this ability since the day we are born but lose it gradually........