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Anonymous

21 Jul 2021

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Retirement

Need advise on an important Career decision.

Recently I was accepted in an established MNC in Singapore. However, I was offered a position in a well-known tech company (Top 5 in the world) in the subsequent week.

The career in the well established MNC is considered as a safe and opportunistic role and I will only be dealing with Singapore based projects. Standard Mon-Fri job

The job description in the tech company will be less challenging and it will be a slow growth in this company, in exchange I get the exposure to new tech and opportunity to work with cross-country personnel. 5 days work week with Sat being part of the work week.

I am stuck in this position of unsure if I should take the leap and join the tech company, however i will most likely burn bridges with the established company as I will have to quit in my first week and I will sacrifice one weekend to spend with my families and friend(extra weekday for myself only) and also take a 10% paycut. Im open to different opinions and I appreciate that you took the time to read my lengthy post.

Discussion (16)

What are your thoughts?

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The question to ask is which option will make you a better person, depending on your objective, whether is it to earn more $ or to learn. Choose the better option!

Take the MNC role.

  1. Higher salary = more savings & investments
  2. Better time management to spend it with those who matters. Very important as work tends to burn you out.
  3. Better growth, based on your description. Higher growth = better opportunities down the road internally or externally.
  4. Tech firms are setting up regional/international hubs in Singapore, and hiring aggressively. You'll still have a good chance in landing a role (maybe even a senior role) with a top tier tech firm few years down the road with the experience gained in this MNC.

I'd only take up the tech firm's role for these reasons:

  1. Robust employee share scheme. This can greatly scale your networth if the firm's shares is high growth. Such schemes usually allows you to purchase shares at a discount + no brokerage fee.
  2. Better benefits. Most tech firms have F&B provided (but irrelevant since WFH as default now), good health benefits, good support during Covid period.
  3. Having the tech firm's name in your resume makes you extremely happy. This is personal and can outweigh any financial benefits.
  4. You are very good with changes. Internally tech firms can change really fast. This means a sudden change of job scope, change of mandate, change of policies as management deems fit. This is not a bad sign as these firms want to stay current but you'll need to be excited & willing to embrace changes that may impact your role.
  5. Able to accept that the grass may not be greener on the other side. This applies to all job change. I've always seen an interview as a poker game - both interviewee & interviewer are trying to present the best (& sometimes not so true) image of themselves. Nobody knows who is telling the truth until that person actually joins the firm. While the green always seem greener on the other side, it may not necessarily be the case and reality may be far from your expectations. This is something you'll have to be ready to accept when moving to a new place/role.

Great question and I think you might want to look at this as holistically as possible in terms of long-term opportunities. Here's the course I would take if I were you, and feel free to improvise:

  1. I would first work on negotiating the 10% gap with the big tech company so you reduce the risk of a pullback in your compensation should you decide to move with them. Always be negotiating, never ask never know (employers by default already expect candidates to negotiate when they put an offer out on the table. These numbers have already been pre-worked to make room for negotiation so go forth and negotiate, you'd miss out if you didn't. And by how much more? You can try to negotiate up for as much as 20-25% on your initial base offer, and based on that number the employer will likely counter-offer something in the middle (maybe 10-12% more). So your resultant offer would be at least a slight increase from your current drawn at worst, and of course a significant jump at best. Doing this crucial step clears the feelings of the doubt for you to move forward with a clear mind.
  2. Reputable company brand names on your CV always give you higher chances to hop around to other big tech boys in the future. I'm not sure what your current established MNC does, but I'd imagine it would be helpful to consider the high-profit potential of tech products vs traditional products. Tech products can scale indefinitely to support large numbers of customers and their profit margins can range anywhere from 30-90%++. Traditional products however, typically only fetch 5-12% proft. When we relate that to your salary potential I think it's a no-brainer, companies which take in higher earnings will likely be more capable of paying their talents vs the ones that don't. So even if the compensation is not that great in your current role, just being under the care of a huge tech giant now will already open up endless earning opportunites for you in your future roles. I'd suggest you use this opportunity to read up on other senior positions that you might want to take up in the coming years, (lots of JDs on Linkedin and sgcareers). Get a sensing of what you need to get good at, then find ways to mold your upcoming role to take on projects that relates best with your future career goals. In a short 2 years I'd imagine you'll be ready to use this big tech's company name to jump roles, ready for your next bump in salary!
  3. Also further elaborating on earning potential, another way to see it is to observe how much revenue we can bring in for the company within that specific role. Say you are in marketing and If you are drawing an annual package of $72k, then your role should at least fetch $216k (or 3x) of revenue for the company to somewhat break even their cost of hiring you + profits. (Ideal revenue = Cost of hiring you + their operation costs + Profits). So if you relate that back, a role that solely takes care of the Singapore market vs Regional coverage of 6-7 markets for example, the regional role has a better chance of fetching a higher revenue. Of course that's a simplistic view, you would want to weigh which markets will come under your portfolio and of course the type of products you are selling. You won't be fetching a lot if you are covering 6 markets but selling plasters, for example.

I hope this helps. And pls always be negotiating, can't stress this enough. Cost of living in Singapore will only hike with creeping costs coming at you from every corner, so while you're focusing on building your value to the company, Always-Be-Negotiating!

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Best,

Nic

View 1 replies

I am not ashamed to say that I have jumped a few companies for a very valid reason of upgrading my roles and exposure. At the end of the day, it's never about MNC vs SME vs (you name it). Each of us have different season for learning and execution, for excelling in a niche area or adjusting to Jack of all trades, or to focus on financial priority as you are raising family, or to be able to take the cut because your hunger for opportunities.

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Essentially what drives one to excel is this sequence, is it a role which gives you LEARNING CURVE and you can foresee the uncharted destination next 3 years? Is it an aspiring TEAM that allows you to thrive? Are you reporting to a BOSS that gives you ownership to drive things? Is the SKILLSET you acquire is going to build upon your value in your industry? Only lastly, is your REMUNERATION package worthy for it.

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Final word, opportunity is always around. There's nothing wrong with switching jobs often IF you know how you are building your value for what the employer may pay you for. Otherwise, don't.

IMHO, 10% pay cut on new role with slower growth doesn't sound exciting.

If possible, try aim for ...

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