Lucrative jobs in Malaysia

A survey done by a recruitment agency, a popular employment services company in Malaysia, had the following results:

Top five highest paying Fresh Graduates positions

Industry	Specialization	Average Salary (50% percentile)
Semiconductor/Wafer Fabrication	Bachelor’s Degree/Professional Degree/Post Graduate Diploma in Engineering	RM 2400
Banking	Bachelor’s Degree/Professional Degree/Post Graduate Diploma in Computer Science/Information Technology	RM 2100
Manufacturing	Bachelor’s Degree/Professional Degree/Post Graduate Diploma in Engineering	RM 2089
Science & Technology/Aerospace/Biotechnology	Bachelor’s Degree/Professional Degree/Post Graduate Diploma in Engineering	RM 2050
Electrical & Electronic	Bachelor’s Degree/Professional Degree/Post Graduate Diploma in Sciences	RM 2050

Please be reminded that, these figures denote an average. Variations will occur depending on the size of the company, job demands and other perks that are packaged into the pay.

You should be made aware that, these are the figures you should be quoting for when applying for the job. I have seen job applications from fresh graduate demanding, and I mean demanding 50% to 100% more than the figures above. Either they think too highly of themselves, or ignorant of current market value. However, just in case you are interested to know, where your job is leading towards, in terms of pay, the agency also provided the following results:

Top five highest paying Senior Management positions

Industry	Specialization	Average Salary (50% percentile)
Manufacturing	IT/Computers	RM10390
Services	IT/Computers	RM 9950
Oil/Gas/Petroleum	Marketing and Business Development	RM9604
Telecommunication	Non-Technical Sales	RM9500
Financial Services/Securities/Insurance	Human Resources /Administration/Personnel	RM9345

As a comparison, how do we stand up against the Americans.

The best-paying jobs in America

Occupation Annual salary (USD) Avg. hours per week Surgeons $189,590 63 Anesthesiologists $181,420 60 Obstetricians, gynecologists $179,640 57 Internists, general $158,350 60 Pediatricians, general $142,360 53 Family, general practitioners $136,260 54 Psychiatrists $135,220 46 CEOs $134,960 Varies greatly Dentists $133,350 37.6

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

You will notice that the surveys done in Malaysia does not cover the medical profession. Rightly so! The medical profession is a highly specialized profession with requiring special aptitude and capabilities. Many do not have them. I am one of them.

Yes, it would be nice to have that extra money. Who wouldn’t? Furthermore, why would I be going into a job that hardly pays?

True, we all could use that extra cash to help us in our daily and monthly expenses, like paying for the house, car, bills and other expenses. Including some luxury indulgence every now and then, like traveling overseas.

Try not to choose a job solely on how much money it makes.

Remember the saying “money can’t buy love or happiness”? Well, the reason the saying has been around for a long time is because it is true.

The point I would like to make is, and it has been in my previous 2 – 3 articles that, “If you like what you do, you end up doing it very well, you get noticed, and you will eventually get paid”.

As mentioned earlier, you need to have the right attitude to get into a specific profession. Like a doctor. Or if you are not good in mathematics, like me, you might want to stay away from becoming an engineer, architect, physicist and etc.

Or if language is not your thing or you do not have the gift of the speech, maybe you should not try to become a TV newscast, a TV host or a radio DJ. I am not saying don’t go for it. You can. Maybe you need extra help and training to get you there. But, be aware of what your strengths and weaknesses are.

Take a simple test. If I ask you to write or tell me something you are interested in, what topic or area that you can go on writing or speaking effortlessly, passionately and with a glow on your face that others reading or listening to you can tell you are really into it?

Think about it, shouldn’t you be doing the thing you love. You are going to spend an enormous amount of time, between 8 – 10 hours a day, 5 – 6 days a week (sometimes more) doing this job you are in. If you can find a job that has some promise of a career path, it pays well AND you love doing it, well go for it.

But if not, consider carefully the decision you have to make because the best-paid jobs are those that pay off not only in money, but also in satisfaction and happiness.

Job toppers in Malaysia

Malaysia is one of the growing economies among the Asian countries. This Southern East Asian country is spread over an area of 329,845sq km with Kuala Lumpur as its capital. The recession had slowed the economic growth of most of the countries and many lost their jobs. The gross GDP of the country is thought to rise progressively as many companies are back on the hiring track.

Services sector is the major pillar of strength for Malaysia. Some of the highly paying jobs in this part of the country that can be the scope for earning money for both its own citizens as well as international candidates are :

Petronas Towers, Malaysia, once the tallest building in the world

Network Engineers

Network engineer is one of the best jobs to look for the people who belong to IT sectors. A certified course in networking from a recognized institution or organization is a must as it will prove ones proficiency level to the prospective organization. People specializing in MCSE (Microsoft certified system engineer), MCP (Microsoft certified professional) or CCNA (Cisco certified network associate) do have a good chance of getting a job that pays well.

However people with some more specialized technicalities like the CCNP or the CCIE are paid fairly good amounts because of their specializations which are mostly looked for by most of the IT companies. A good certified network engineer can expect to get pay between MYR12000 – 13000 which is a fair good start.

MALAYSIA MUSIC VIDEO

Sales and Marketing Professionals

Sales and Marketing is another highly paying profession not only in Malaysia but throughout the world. There is a cut throat competition in this area but when it comes to salary one can just sit and relax as this field is the most lucrative one. There is no limit to a sales professional earning as one not only earns the basic salary but earns a lot of commission coming in with each client one can target and sell the product. The basics of this job lies in the art of communication so an individual having a good command over communication and a well convincing power can fetch him good salaries.

Jobs in the Oil and Gas Industry

The energy sources like the oil and gas fields also pays handsome amounts. This field is better suited for individuals who are ready to relocate to different destinations as this opportunity calls for a lot of exploration and search as one might be asked to relocate to some areas of Africa, emirates or various parts of Asia.

These jobs do require a background in oil and petroleum or some relevant experience in such areas which shall make one eligible for the job. Since these jobs are highly relocating and do involve some risks, so the salary package offered is good enough to justify the job profile. Some of the big firms that are offering good salary and profiles to the deserving candidates include Shell, PETRONAS, schlumberger and many more.

Jobs in the Telecommunication Industry

With the growing needs of people for various communication modes the telecommunication industry is picking up pace. This is one another industry that offers a good package. With the new technologies coming up like the 3G and wimax the companies are looking for people who are well aware of such applications. These jobs are mostly on contract basis. The agreement may be short term or long term depending upon the project.

These jobs offer a good amount of salary and most of them are paying their candidates in USD’s. This is a big option for people interested in telecom industry and who have the knowledge about the various fields like the radio frequency enhancing or other telecommunications aspects like the 3G projects dealing with implementation, planning and optimization of the radio networks. A person dealing with some short term projects of about 3- 6 months can earn between 16,500 USD per month which is close to a figure of MYR 54000

Learn a Foreign Language

Another good option in Malaysia is the industries dealing with the foreign language speaking professionals. These professionals are highly in demand with the organizations who are dealing with various sectors of outsourcing and customer relationships of different companies not only of Malaysia but also internationally.

People who have good command over other languages specially people who are well versed with Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, German and Thai language are paid very well due to the fact that there are only limited people available who have a good hold of these tough languages. Another factor adding on to good salaries is that if people have some background in accounting, IT or business. If you search properly you can find that there is a large number of job vacancies in Malaysia.

EPF Q2 investment income up 23.4pc

The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) recorded an investment income of RM5.93 billion for the second quarter of this year, up 23.47 per cent from RM4.80 billion in the same quarter of 2009.
Chief executive officer Tan Sri Azlan Zainol said the positive performance was mainly due to the country's robust economic growth in the first half of the year. "The increase in performance was primarily encouraged by improvements in both domestic and global equity markets and supported by the higher interest rates compared to the previous corresponding period," he said in a statement here today.

He said the growth was led significantly by equities that contributed RM2.72 billion. Loans and bonds was the second largest contributor with an income of RM1.90 billion, an increase by 4.72 per cent over the RM1.81 billion earned in the same quarter of 2009.

However, there was 1.02 per cent decline in income from investments in the Malaysian Government Securities which contributed RM1.10 billion, compared with RM1.11 billion previously. Investment income derived from Money Market Instruments, meanwhile, posted the most significant increase at 94.23 per cent to contribute RM183.10 million against RM94.27 million in second quarter of last year. The increase was attributed to higher asset holding and interest rates.

EPF also saw higher income from properties where it rose by 9.37 per cent compard with the previous corresponding quarter, contributing RM22.76 million. Going forward, Azlan said although EPF had performed well in the first half of this year, the pension fund remained cautious over the outlook in the second half.

"Nonetheless, we will continuously seek to optimise returns and add value to members' retirement," he added.

Source: Bernama

How to Use Technology to Switch Careers

There’s no reason why work has to feel like, well, work. While it’s a tough market out there, the good news is there’s no better time than now to reinvent yourself and your career.

You’re probably well-aware of the ways job seekers are using technology to find and apply for new positions. But you might not know that the same tools can be leveraged not only to find a new job, but also to plan for a new career.
    
The prospect of switching careers can be downright scary for many job seekers; like all major changes, it requires a little planning and a lot of courage. Of course, incurring this short-term risk creates some long-term rewards, namely a long-term, rewarding career doing something you’re passionate about.  

Here are five simple steps for using technology to research potential paths and find out which career is the right one for you.

1. Get the Official Story: After identifying your strengths and natural talents, you’ll want to apply these as a filter to start researching which careers are the best fits for you.  

Monster’s new Career Snapshots tool provides official details, such as qualifications, skills and duties, for more than 2,500 careers, ranging from accountants to fashion models and everything in between. Career Snapshots also provide industry forecasts collected from thousands of job postings, offering valuable data on current and anticipated job market trends.

2.  Get the Unofficial Story: Online professional networks are a great way to learn more about a specific industry or function. Once you determine what you want to do for a living, you’ll need to prove a commitment and dedication to your chosen field, or else your dream job will remain just that.  

While most job seekers use social networks as professional marketing vehicles to connect with people in a targeted field, they also provide a great way to pick up industry knowledge, terminology and trends.  

Monster Communities feature a variety of unique professional networks aligning with various job functions and industries, such as marketing, human resources and healthcare to help connect better. Participating in online communities provides opportunities to learn more about industry and professional trends, engage with influencers and employers, and expand your network simultaneously. 

3. See How You Compare: Monster recently introduced Career Benchmarking, a cutting-edge resource that shows job seekers how they compare with their peers. Featuring a wide variety of topics, ranging from compensation to commute times, Career Benchmarking compares your information against local and national averages for thousands of unique job titles. The data provided is priceless; fortunately, Monster offers this powerful tool for free to all job seekers.

4. Read Job Listings: Using a job board like Monster to access and read job descriptions also provides valuable insight into building a long-term strategy for your new career. Browsing for postings in a targeted function or industry helps give a good sense of the experience, training and skills you’ll be expected to have as well as the recurring responsibilities involved in day-to-day work.

5. Make a Choice: Be sure you have strong, valid reasons to change careers; doing so might mean drastic changes in self-perception, working environment, income, work-life balance, healthcare benefits and a myriad of other considerations.  

You have to be able to state your case effectively, clearly and passionately as to why you’re picking a new career and what you hope to gain from the change. Incorporating this message into your social profiles and personal brand is critical, and an easy way to advertise your decision (and availability) to your network, both online and off.

If you’re having trouble creating a compelling case about why you’re making the move, you might be better off exploring another path or focusing on advancing your current career. While technology can help with exploring new careers, it can’t decide which path is right for you. That’s your job.

Source: Matt Charney, Monster Social Media Engagement

EPF Dividend For 2009 Expected To Be Higher

PUTRAJAYA, Feb 7 (Bernama) -- The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) dividend for 2009 is expected to be higher compared to the 4.5 per cent paid out in the previous year.


EPF chairman Tan Sri Samsudin Osman said this was due to the local share market's stable position and good investment returns.

"A meeting on dividend rates will be held this month, while an announcement on it will be made in March," he told reporters, here Sunday.

Samsudin, who is also Putrajaya Corporation president, had earlier presented prizes to winners of a fishing competition held in conjunction with Federal Territory Day celebrations.

In December, EPF announced that it obtained RM5.5 billion in profits in the third quarter last year, which was an increase of RM696.32 million (14.51 per cent) compared to RM4.8 billion in the previous quarter.

EPF chief executive officer Tan Sri Azlan Zainol said EPF funds had now increased to RM361.09 billion compared with RM353.93 billion in the second quarter last year.

For the year 2008, 12 million EPF members received a dividend of 4.5 per cent, which was lower than the 5.8 per cent for 2007.



Source: BERNAMA

5 tips for a good tech resume.

The five essential tips for a good tech resume.


1. Drop the detail. The No. 1 problem with most technical résumés is that they are way too long. Résumés often come in at six pages when they should be only two pages. (You can get away with three if you're covering a decade's worth of multiple job stints.) Remember, "résumé" is French for "summary"!

So why do techies tend to write résumé tomes? The reason is that good technical people understand the value of documentation and detail. After all, the mentality is 'If you don't document your work, does it really exist? No doubt this kind of thinking has made its way on to the résumé.

There's also a fear that the technology important to a potential employer just might be a DEC PDP-11 minicomputer, which you worked on in the 1980s but failed to mention on your résumé. Driven by this unfounded fear, nervous techies fatten up their résumés with every technical detail since the dawn of computers.

Rest easy, with the pace of technology change, there is no way that a piece of technology that you have not touched since 1985 is going to help you get a job right now so just leave it off the résumé.

2. Abolish your objective. Don't put an objective on your résumé. How to put this gently? No one cares what you want. Companies want to know what you can do for them.


An all-too-common résumé starter: Objective: To use my technical skills in an enterprise-wide environment to grow with the organization and help them to be competitive and profitable. The objective starts with the desires of the applicant and plays into the rotten stereotype of the me-first, prima donna techie.

In lieu of an objective, try a summary with a maximum of four bulleted points. If it runs longer, then it's really not a summary but the exposition itself. Here's an example of a two-bulleted summary:

• Over 10 years working with Oracle applications, customizing them for global organizations
•  Specific expertise in the following Oracle modules and versions: Oracle Procurement and Spend Analytics, Oracle Hyperion Financial Management

In summaries, avoid generic words and phrases like "project management," "sales support," "leadership," "team player," "problem solver," and "excellent communication skills." That's because summaries are too short and can't provide the proper context for these words, so they end up being meaningless and waste space.


3. Get your résumé in search shape. Most tech résumés go through a whirlwind lifecycle, from keyword search to a nontechnical hiring manager or a recruiter to a CTO or a tech-savvy CIO who is looking to fill a specific need. The challenge is to write a résumé that speaks to these different readers. And that first reader is usually a résumé-search application, not a person.

To get past the search filter, you'll need to do a little research on jobs in demand during a recession and related job descriptions. The goal is to find the acronyms, the résumés, and the keyword phrases that the software will be looking for. This can be an arduous task, and there's no getting around it, but things can go a little faster if you have multiple versions of your résumé touting different keywords.

Keywords are tricky, too. For instance, do you fill your résumé with the term "Access," "MS Access," or "Microsoft Access"? All, of course, mean the same thing. But what will the search value? It's probably safe to use two of the three.


The keyword decision process goes something like this: Most corporate recruiters are just out of college. These are young kids who are very good with search engines. They get a job description, enter in keywords, and then start searching. That's how your résumé is going to come up.. Or not.


It's also good practice to use keywords and acronyms (along with their spelled-out names) in both the technical skills list and inside the body of the résumé. Not only does this optimize the search, but human eyes down the road will be able to connect technology to the job.


4. Highlight the right certifications. Despite the best efforts of applicant-screening software, hiring managers are still flooded with résumés and have to separate them quickly into yes and no piles. Certifications can be a very effective way to do this. Right or wrong, nontechnical hiring managers often use certifications to help them evaluate technical skills.


On the other hand, too many certifications littering a résumé can result in a death by a thousand cuts. If someone looks like a certification junky, and they're moving from job to job, the certification suddenly becomes a liability. That's why it's important to choose technical certification training wisely.


While certifications pale in comparison with work experience, having the right certification can tip the scales in favor of an applicant. According to Foote Partners' fall 2008 survey of more than 22,000 IT professionals, which covers some 170 certifications, the most valuable certificates today settle mainly into two camps: architecture and security. Microsoft and Cisco certifications also got good grades.


5. Balance tech and business. Describing your prior job descriptions in only a couple of paragraphs is more art than science -- that is, there are no hard and fast rules. Yet there are some helpful guidelines.

• For starters, a prior job description should start with a general statement similar to a summary bullet. For example, "Financial services technical expert with a specialty in large-scale networks with excellent uptime."
• The body should have technical detail that, critically, shows the technology's impact on business. Both the hiring manager and the CIO want workers who understand technology's role in the business, especially in times of financial stress. The most recent previous jobs should contain the most detail, while older jobs require only company name and job role.

With prior job descriptions, techies often make two glaring mistakes.

1. The first one is writing in excruciating detail the basic job description of, say, a network admin. The hiring manager may not understand it, and the CIO already knows it. Don't waste the space.
2. The second mistake is describing technical projects, challenges, and relationships without any context. Metrics can provide this context. As a lead systems admin, for instance, how many people did you manage? If you built a network, point out the number of people it supports.

Conversely, while it sounds cool to say you reported directly to the CIO, the recruiter may feel duped after finding out it was at a five-person company.


More do's and don'ts

• You should also make sure you take care of the basics, since lack of attention to these details leaves a bad impression. And in this environment, you can't afford that.
• Make sure to put your name and page numbers on your résumé, such as "Yogendran, page 1 of 3," since a résumé will change hands and be shuffled with other résumés.
• If your formal education and certifications are impressive, go ahead and put them on the first page.
• Tech résumés tend to be dense, like lines of code on a computer screen, yet it will help to have some white space in your résumé to make it easier on human eyes.
• Present your résumé as a Microsoft Word document. It's standard in the industry.
• Avoid the first person -- "I" or "me" -- in the résumé.
• For e-mail addresses on résumés, use a Gmail, Hotmail or a Yahoo address if you use a free e-mail account. E-mails from AOL addresses can reveal your age and yes, age discrimination exists. If you're using an e-mail from a personal domain, make sure it's professional. I may times have seen an e-mail with fcuker@ [domain].com, dummy@[domain]. com and even [name]@2pacworld.com. You'd be shocked at what I've seen.

Good luck!


Source: InfoWorld & MIS Asia