By Radha Basu
June 25, 2003

Those who wish to take up IT skills in the hope of finding a job may be in for a disappointment.

IT skills and hands-on experience are both needed in today's tough job market.

Government grants for the Strategic Manpower Conversion Programme (SMCP) for self-sponsored candidates have been temporarily suspended for the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) to re-think the scheme, said deputy director of IDA's manpower development division, Mr Lo Yoong Khong.

This will be a blow to mid-career and retrenched workers who want to switch careers and enter the infocomm industry by acquiring entry-level IT skills.

In 2000, the Government had launched the SMCP with grants to help non-infocomm professionals train for entry-level IT jobs.

In April this year, the IDA stopped funding 'self-sponsored' candidates who were able to obtain government funds of up to $4,000 per person per course to pay for their training.

Grants, however, are still available for company-sponsored employees. Mr Lo added that company-sponsored candidates are selected because their companies have probably identified the IT-related jobs and are sending the employees to get the relevant IT skills.

Buyers' market

So where are the IT jobs?

Headhunters say that most of them are for those who have acquired professional IT certifications, such as the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers (MCSE) and Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) or in emerging technologies such as grid computing and web services.

'In today's buyers' market, employers are looking for people with qualification and experience,' said Ms Nardia Munt of TMP Hudson Global Resources. An advertisement for an IT manager's job, for instance, could get 300 applications in two days, many from candidates with the necessary skills, qualifications and experience, she said.

'In such a situation, workers with newly acquired skills and no experience would be unlikely to make the shortlist.'

And that's what seems to be happening. Take former bank manager Andrew Lim (not his real name) for example. Nine months after completing a Diploma in Infocomm Technology course with the Government paying half his course fees, Mr Lim, 39, is still unemployed.

After 15 years of service, Mr Lim was retrenched in late 2001. Attracted by the government-funded SMCP training scheme to switch careers and to move to IT, Mr Lim eagerly signed up. He has now given up looking for jobs in the infocomm industry and is trying the banking sector again.

One of the biggest obstacles while trying to get an IT job was that Mr Lim had no infocomm experience. 'That's ironic, given that only people with no infocomm experience are eligible for grants under the SMCP,' he said.

Another retrenched worker, Mr S. Somanathan, like Mr Lim, is also unemployed, three months after doing another course under the SMCP. Mr Somanathan, a former accountant, is in his early forties.

Mr Lim's experience made him feel that the Government was pouring 'money into a black hole'.

'Rather than stopping funding self-sponsored individuals, the Government should try and create openings for us through part-time jobs.'

Short-term work

Recruiters suggested that short-term employment may be a solution.

Ms Connie Lim, a consultant at recruitment firm Adecco, added: 'As employers pre-fer to hire candidates with relevant work experience, it is important to help IDA trainees to obtain such hands-on experience through temporary, contract or project-based work.

That's what the National Infocomm Competency Centre (NICC) is providing. A recently launched programme called e-Project is aimed at finding short-term employment for infocomm workers.

The centre's general manager, Ms Lim Choon Heong, conceded that given the current market conditions, newly trained or certified employees may lose out in the short run.

However, given the slow market conditions, workers now had the 'luxury of time', Ms Lim said, which they should take advantage of to train, and look forward to good jobs once the economy improves.

Fund for training: How effective is it?

Close to $10 million of public funds were set aside to train 6,237 people interested in pursuing IT careers, during the last financial year, April 2002 to March 2003, figures from the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) indicate. However, there seems to be no way of knowing how many of those who took up the scheme have been effectively employed. Deputy director of IDA's manpower development division, Mr Lo Yoong Khong, said: "Due to the large number of people who attend our training programmes, one-on-one tracking to check on their employability is realistically quite tough... However, while there's no formal tracking process, we are in constant dialogue with training providers who give some very useful feedback based on their interaction with the course participants.'

What is SMCP?

The Strategic Manpower Conversion Programme (SMCP) was launched in April 2000 by the Government to train non-infocomm professionals in IT skills. A fund of $2 million to be spent over five years was set aside for the scheme. Trainees who opted for courses under the SMCP could use government funds to pay up to 50 per cent of course fees - capped at $4,000 per trainee per course. The rest of the fees had to be paid either by the trainees themselves, if they were "self-sponsored' candidates or by their companies. More than 1,000 workers have been trained under SMCP since 2000, with 427 in the past year alone. A majority of these are company-sponsored trainees.