I have been on a life long learning journey since going on gardening leave from my last banking job in Jun 2017. Since then, with the timely arrival of the Skillsfuture initiative to retrain mid-career PMETs, I have embarked on a path of self-discovery to plot my halftime road map.
I had written about the journey taken so far in my previous blog post so this week’s personal ramblings will be on the future, the next step. As I move deeper into new learnings that interest me and also to help me set a course to help pivot from my past experiences into a new niche, I cannot help but realise that this happens to be the future road map for all industries too. Getting ahead of the curve is very important.
As a global finance centre, Singapore has been very welcoming to overseas talent to build up its reputation as a premium banking location. The downside is that many citizens are displaced and replaced by foreign talent as this is an attractive place to be. It is at the heart of Asia where it is fast growing. With the advent of AI, more jobs will be lost to technology. We need to retrain and upskill to prepare for newer jobs that will appear in the near future.
The government has realised this and had started the Skillsfuture initiative to address it. I fully embrace this as it provides me with a lot of opportunities to upgrade myself. I need to be hungry enough to seek out my path, using the tools that have been provided. The website myskillsfuture.sg https://www.myskillsfuture.sg/ already has more than 25,000+ courses where one can use keywords search to find a topic that you may be interested in.
What’s next? I am half way through my MOOC online course on AI in Finance. Thanks to a friend, he showed me the path to the next step. He was in the mailing list of IBF (Institue of Banking and Finance) and receives regular updates on developments in the banking sector and possible job opportunities. This was part of the benefits from the retrenchment exercise which he was unfortunately placed into about 2 years ago.
He forwarded an email from IBF to me a few weeks ago that prick my interest immensely. They have started a new Profession Conversion Program (PCP) along the lines of which I have been pursuing. https://conversion.mycareersfuture.sg/Portal/ProgramListing.aspx?source=PCP
What is PCP?
“Professional Conversion Programmes (PCPs) are career conversion programmes targeted at Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians (PMETs), including mid-career switchers, to undergo skills conversion and move into new occupations or sectors that have good prospects and opportunities for progression.
- Place-and-Train: PMET is hired by a participating employer before undergoing training to take on a new job role.
- Attach-and-Train: PMET is provided with training and work attachments, in advance of job placement, through industry partners in growth sectors with good future job opportunities.”
In particular, there was a new launch on 4 areas of job demand and they had worked with a number of financial institutions to target 70 candidates for mid-career switches in the following areas: Cybersecurity, Cloud Computing, Full Stack Development and Data Analytics. The duration was between 18 to 24 months and there was a full-time student allowance of up to SGD 5,500 per month. Not bad, right?
As I did not have the necessary qualifications for the first 3 and was already very into AI and Business Analytics (my recent Temasek Polytechnic Specialist Diploma), the natural choice was Data Analytics: https://conversion.mycareersfuture.sg/Portal/ProgramDetails.aspx?ProgID=P00000422
The group of us signed up for the first briefing session on 26 Apr. The moment the 4 of us entered the auditorium, we immediately raise the average age substantially…. hahaha. The room was full of 20 to 30+-year-old attendees and I felt so old. So I guess mid-career to them doesn’t refer to 50+-year-olds… Their briefing pitch was quite clear and they explained the screening steps required. Data analytics was the last topic of the session but I could not stay as we had a family outing to an Ed Sheeran concert that evening. The upside was that we found out that one of the lecturers was an ex-Citibank old-timer and she thought I looked familiar!
Our group sort of wrote off this IBF initiative after the briefing session. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It fitted into the grander scheme of things for my plan to pivot my 29 years of banking work experience into a newer and higher demand area of Big Data analyzing using AI concepts. What the heck, I thought to myself, I should just apply for it just for the fun of knowing I did. Yoda says: “Do or not do, there is no try”.
So a few weeks back, I drummed up enough courage, dust off my CV, updated it and sent out my online application. I included my recently obtained Business Analytics Diploma for greater impact. Maybe I should have added a cover letter too, but they did not ask for it specifically. So I figured that I should just let my experience do the talking instead. The closing date for online application was 31 May.
I was pleasantly surprised on Monday when IBF sent me an email requesting an interview on 31 May! I guess they liked what they see so far and want to get to know me better. I move to the next step with no expectations. I will aim to do this on my terms, hoping to marry this with my existing Myanmar part-time consultancy work. Let’s see how this will work out, one step at a time.
I will be going to Yangon next week for my monthly trip, then it will be a week of preparation for my next quarterly half marathon (Sundown).
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