How to thrive in a tight graduate job market

Minister for Health and Coordinating Minister for Social Policies Ong Ye Kung speaking during the dialogue session at the Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum on Sept 7

PHOTO: ST FILE

Ong Ye Kung

At the start of your career, learning and laying a career foundation matter the most. This is an abridged version of a speech delivered at the Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum on Sept 7

Many of you have shared that it has become more challenging to find jobs. Some of you are stacking multiple internships to secure a job. Some have sent out hundreds of curricula vitae. Sometimes you get screened out by AI even before you meet a human interviewer. The Graduate Employment Survey data reflects some of this experience

From 2023 to 2025, the proportion of graduates who secured employment six months after graduation declined from about 93 per cent to 89 per cent. It is a more competitive graduate employment market

What has changed? For one, there are now more graduates both in absolute terms, and as well as a percentage of every cohort. When I graduated in the early 1990s, about one in five students in a cohort became a graduate. Today, it is one in two

This is a positive development, as more young Singaporeans are better educated and can achieve aspirations to get a degree

The Government expanded university places to support not just the desire from parents and students for higher education, but also to support the restructuring and upgrading of our economy

Regardless of the number of graduates, employers always look for distinct qualities within job applicants. In the past, they could do so by using your GPAs as a proxy of the qualities they are looking for. Now, with more graduates, employers also select applicants through internships

But there’s an unintended consequence. As more students build internship experience in addition to exemplary grades, the job search process becomes more demanding. We now have a self-reinforcing loop. Employers tighten hiring criteria; graduates respond by doing more to meet the new criteria. Soon, we have an arms race. To help students land internships and find jobs, the Government developed programmes like GRIT, the Graduate Industry Traineeships programme. In a way, the Government too, got pulled into this arms race.

Things are also happening on the demand side, among employers. Driven by larger forces, many industries have been undergoing significant change over the years – automobiles shifting to electric vehicles, entertainment moving to streaming platforms, supply chains reconfiguring because of geopolitical disruptions and healthcare being reshaped by an older population

And then there is AI. In some organisations and industries, it is automating certain routine tasks which used to be handled by new hires. Hence, AI might have raised the baseline expectations of what a new hire has to do

This has given rise to what some call the “broken ladder syndrome”. The career ladder is still there, but the first two rungs have been replaced by AI. As a new hire now, you need to take a bigger step and start from the third rung instead of the first. There are important long-term implications of that development, because sometimes it’s the first two rungs that help us learn the ropes of the industry.

In summary, we now have more graduates entering the market, employers needing to differentiate between job applicants and higher expectations of new hires. These are three compounding factors resulting in a tighter graduate job market and greater job search anxiety. The question is, how should we respond?

First, be confident. You are not entering a declining or a stagnant economy. You are entering an economy that is growing, that is attracting investments and that is still dynamic. You are not cooked

That Singapore remains relevant and competitive is a decisive factor in shaping the employment market. If we are not competitive, investments will stop and jobs will dry up. But this is not happening. Singapore is strengthening our position as a key node in global supply chains. After the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, there is greater recognition of the importance of the Strait of Malacca and Singapore, and the role Singapore is playing to facilitate global trade.

We also have an open economy, a strong network of free trade agreements, tripartite cooperation, stable institutions and political climate. We take a long-term approach to policy implementation and development. We invest heavily in our people and in education.

Hence, companies, from semiconductor and information technology to pharmaceuticals and financial services, continue to base important functions here. Our small and medium-sized enterprises also need talent. They always lament that they cannot attract graduates and graduates don’t want to apply for their jobs

Healthcare workers remain as busy as ever. In fact, they are hoping that AI can help reduce some of their routine work, such as through automating record-taking during a consultation with a patient, planning their work rosters and providing an extra pair of eyes when they do diagnostic scans. Once, I asked an interior designer if AI has affected his job. He said no. While he uses it to improve renderings for clients, when it comes to liaising with contractors, applying for permits with government agencies and iterating ideas with the clients, he still has to do it.

The feedback is quite consistent from people across many professions. AI is replacing certain tasks, but not entire jobs, at least not yet. It is not resulting in mass job displacement, but is instead used as a tool to improve productivity

The second thing you can consider doing is to tap the support structure around you. There are many reto help you succeed. You are not alone

Our education system remains one of Singapore’s strongest capability builder. Our tertiary institutions are high-quality and responsive. They have been trying very hard to keep their curricula updated, including with input from industry. They have incorporated more real-world learning and interdisciplinary training. Universities are also introducing more courses to build data and AI fluency in every student, and several have offered students free access to AI tools.

University career offices are also playing an active role to facilitate employment. They are reporting healthy levels of job vacancies registered from employers. The National Trades Union Congress organises career fairs to put graduates directly in front of employers, sometimes with interviews conducted on the spot. The Skills and Workforce Development Agency will be stepping up their career guidance, attachments and employment-matching support.

I recently visited the Singapore Business Federation and highlighted to them the problem of the internship arms race. Bringing things down a notch is not going to affect the quality of their hires but will help make the undergraduate experience richer and more holistic. They recognised these challenges faced by new graduates, and agreed with my suggestion to consolidate internship opportunities across their members and to assist undergraduates, especially those facing challenges landing their first internship.

NTUC organises career fairs to put graduates directly in front of employers, sometimes with interviews conducted on the spot. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI

Hiring a fresh graduate is always about spotting potential and taking a chance on a young person. Some students spent years training, playing competitive sports or dedicating themselves to the arts. Some have gone backpacking around the world and made friends from many different cultures. Some volunteered in the community, or took on caregiving responsibilities at home

These experiences may not fit neatly into a conventional CV, but they say something important about the person: of their resilience, initiative, discipline, empathy, character and work ethic. I encourage and hope that employers will look at candidates holistically, beyond GPAs and internships. Help assure applicants that this is how you hire, and cool down an arms race that is energy-sapping

Finally, while you cannot control every outcome, there are steps you can take to shape your own path and prepare yourself for the future

The most important priority is to build mastery. This means finding an area that you care about, going deep into the craft and working at it for the long haul. It will be difficult but that is why it would be worthwhile investing in the effort. A degree may open the door. A mastery of your craft will define you as a professional and become your biggest competitive edge. In a world where AI takes over routine tasks, mastery is what sets you apart and will be more valued than before.

When you apply for a job, try to demonstrate your interest, your passion and your desire to pursue mastery. I understand the instinct to cast a wide net

There is a saying that you miss 100 per cent of the shots you do not take, so it is better to send out more CVs to increase your chances. But employers are moving targets that can move faster than your shots. They can tell when a CV is mass produced, even if it contains some customised tweaks. It is better to zero in – which industry, what kind of work, what sort of organisation suits and interests you – and invest in a defined set of opportunities.

If one of your shots hit the target and you get an offer, seriously consider taking the win. It will rarely be the perfect job. Even when you get your perfect job, by the time you start, you may realise it’s not perfect. Every target you hit gives you confidence and brings you one step closer to mastery

Sometimes fresh graduates turn down an offer because the salary falls short of expectations or there is a lack of work-life balance. This matters and it is understandable you value them. But at the start of your career, learning and laying a career foundation matters the most. If the employer does not offer the option of working from home, understand that there are good reasons for requiring physical presence. It is about being present at the workplace to learn the ropes, interact with colleagues, mentors and supervisors face to face, observe how decisions are made, and take part in conversations along the corridor and in the pantry. You can pick up the habits of the profession only at the workplace.

Your first job is a starting point, not a settling point. Seizing an opportunity, even an imperfect one, is giving yourself a platform to build towards your goals

It is natural to feel anxious when we start worrying about a future that we know is uncertain. Sometimes we just need to have faith in ourselves, in Singapore, in humanity

AI is a major exponentially. Not very long from now, it will reach AGI (artificial general intelligence), and then ASI, artificial superintelligence. Then what happens?

We won’t know for sure

But perhaps its greatest impact is on the compression of time taken for inventions and discoveries – in inventing new drugs to cure diseases, better machines, faster engineering calculations and instantaneous problem analysis. These will trigger thousands of work streams, and spark tremendous economic activities and opportunities in the same way that previous rounds of technology breakthroughs in history created far more jobs than they destroyed.

Perhaps in the age of ASI, humans will have taken steps to curb AI’s unfettered growth

Governments may reserve certain jobs to be done only by humans, which was suggested by Bill Gates recently. Maybe consumers like you and me may demand the human touch. We may demand that doctors, teachers, educators, policemen, human resources personnel, service staff and financial advisers be human. We want food prepared by human chefs. We want to watch live bands and listen to songs written by human songwriters. We want to watch films featuring human actors and real-world imagery, like Top Gun: Maverick.

In history, when machines replaced human and physical labour, it led to an industrial revolution

There were new social stresses, which led to the emergence of social welfare systems and unions to protect workers

When computers replaced cognitive effort, it raised productivity, turbo-charged growth and globalisation, and changed the way we consume information and the way we communicate. And today we are grappling with its far-reaching impact, on mental health, social cohesion and even the functioning of democracy

As AI replaces knowledge creation and even human connection, the impact will be even more profound. Seizing its opportunities, installing guardrails, and pushing back against its adverse impacts are parallel efforts of equal importance that we must start with now

It will be an uncertain process and understandably worrying, but it is not new to human history. From a personal standpoint, how does worrying help? How does getting anxious help? Life is not straightforward. That is a fact. Regretting the past and worrying about the future is a waste of energy. They change nothing and are among our worst emotional enemies

Instead, focus on the present. That means seizing opportunities before us, investing in your own mastery and making the best use of the opportunities. These are things I’ve been trying to live by. Regardless of what phase of life we are in, we must continue to seize the moment before us. Learn as much as we can, and figure out what we want to do when we grow up