According to the 2021 economy statistics by The Singapore Department of Statistics, 99 per cent of all 291,600 registered businesses in Singapore (approximately 288,600 registered business) are small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In addition, SMEs contribute to about 44 per cent of the national gross domestic product (GDP), and employ 71 per cent of all workers.

Extrapolated, this means that up to 70 per cent of graduates will launch their careers in engineering SMEs!

It doesn’t take a lot of research to find out that there’s steady demand for civil engineers in Singapore. From the Green Plan 2030 to keeping up in Built-To-Order (BTO) housing and constructing new MRT lines, there’s a lot going on that needs the support of engineers.

When studying for your engineering degree in school, it may seem like you can only move between engineering-related jobs or companies. Fortunately, that’s not necessarily the case! The best thing about an engineering degree is that it equips you with highly sought-after transferable skills, such as logical thinking, critical thinking and problem-solving. As for your hard skills, you’ll have a strong background in numeracy, systems design, programming languages and even data modelling!

As a fresh graduate, when looking at online job listings and forums to send in applications, you can find lists that state more than 43,000 engineering jobs in Singapore. Although this seems like a lot, in fact, this number continues to grow every day, as Singapore persists in becoming a Smart Nation.

But due to a high number of jobs and the expanding engineering industry, there’s also a lot of information about the different areas of engineering available in Singapore, relevant (and other) roles and the recruitment processes.

So you decided to look into landing a graduate job in investment banking or investment management. But the moment you Googled about it, you got swamped with an endless amount of articles, forum discussions and book excerpts.

Despite your initial enthusiasm, seeing so much in one go left you pretty overwhelmed. But it doesn’t have to be, because we’ve compiled a list of common questions graduates might ask when considering the investment banking and investment management industry!

When you first begin your job hunt, your mantra would most likely be “research and apply, research and apply, research and apply”. After all, you need to find out if a prospective company’s right for you, starting with commercial goals, growth, products and services, workplace culture, as well as the general development of the industry the firm is in.

Over the past few years, there’s been a trend amongst undergraduates in accountancy and financial management to opt for postgraduate studies before joining the workforce. Some reasons for their decision include a desire to specialise in an area that needs further study (like tax, or for the edge it might give them in their employment prospects.