SINGAPORE: When he was a junior college student, Mr Ng Rui Jie did not put much effort into getting a scholarship that would bind him to a government job, because he simply did not expect a difficult job search after university.

Today, the 25-year-old National University of Singapore (NUS) computer science graduate wishes he had a scholarship bond to serve. It would have meant a guaranteed job.

“I do feel a bit regretful,” Mr Ng told CNA. Despite submitting more than 120 job applications since last October – before he graduated this year – he has yet to secure a full-time role.

“I do consider, if I had chosen a different path, how would that turn out?” Mr Ng said.

On paper, Mr Ng’s jobseeking struggles stand in stark contrast to a seemingly buoyant job market.

According to recent Ministry of Manpower (MOM) data, there were 32,800 entry-level vacancies for professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) in March, accounting for 43.6 per cent of all PMET job openings.

These entry-level jobs have a minimum salary between S$2,300 and S$5,000, are considered suitable for fresh graduates, and are advertised on job portals to recruit locals.

The data on job openings, which came from surveys conducted by the ministry and online job portals, has remained steady over time – there were 32,500 entry-level PMET vacancies in December 2025, and 34,600 in December 2024.

Yet on the ground, the experiences of eight young jobseekers from the graduating classes of 2025 and 2026 paint a different picture.

While a majority eventually managed to secure full-time job offers, several told CNA they endured a difficult job search that involved compromise.

For some, the prolonged uncertainty of getting hired meant having to rethink their career timelines or choosing a safer, stabler entry into the workforce.

MANAGING EXPECTATIONS

Earlier this year, a study by MOM found that fresh graduates across most disciplines earned less than they expected when they started work. Low pay and waiting for a better offer were top reasons for turning down job offers.

Asked about this, the fresh graduates told CNA they did not feel that they were being picky.

Instead, they maintain that they want to expand their horizons, trading generous work-life balance and immediate financial rewards for career-building roles that offer a foot in the door.

Mr Ng, the computer science graduate, had already tempered his expectations when he started his job search last year.

His job search was not limited to Big Tech and the private sector. He hoped for a collaborative company culture and work-life balance, but was prepared to accept “996” hours – working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week.

He also moderated his expected salary to S$5,000 from S$6,000, on par with the S$5,500 median monthly salary for information and digital technology graduates in 2025.

“I think that we are very open-minded. A lot of us have a growth mindset,” said fellow jobseeker Afsheen Jae, a 22-year-old business graduate from Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

“We want to be given more opportunities, and we want to be in an environment where there is opportunity for career progression over a high salary from the start.”

Ms Jae had applied to about 120 jobs since the start of the year, an experience she described as eye-opening because of a lack of responses from employers. She came close to settling for an internship, but has since received a full-time offer.

She and many of her peers do not want a “corporate nine-to-five” job, and this is part of them keeping an open mind, she said.

“We want to look at start-ups or freelance work or building our own businesses. To me, this is being open-minded, trying to take on opportunities that maybe aren’t very conventional.

“Especially now, a lot of us are willing to accept jobs that maybe we wouldn’t have a few months ago,” she added.

One such position was that of an executive or personal assistant. Ms Jae, who wants to work in organisational development, used to associate such roles with purely administrative and secretarial tasks.

She became open to executive and personal assistant roles after learning that they can also get involved in corporate strategy.

Early career roles often leave little room for salary negotiation, so graduates should be clear on what matters most to them and what they can compromise on, said Ms Prasanthi Guda, director of career and employability services at Singapore Management University (SMU).

Aside from salary, she encouraged young jobseekers to also weigh training and travel opportunities, exposure to new markets, career progression, flexible work arrangements, and health and wellbeing benefits.

CHANGING TIMELINES

One effect that a lengthy job hunt has had on fresh graduates is that what used to be a definitive university graduation date is now a prolonged transition of internships, traineeships and temporary work stints.

Mr Kenneth Chow, 25, graduated from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) with a business degree last year.

He left university with a full-time job offer from a technology consultancy where he had been an intern. He turned it down to figure out what he really wanted to do.

“I’m a person who likes to take risks when I can,” he told CNA. “When you are young, when you are (in the) early part of your career, I like to take a little bit of risk to do something I really want.”

This January, after setting his sights on technology sales, Mr Chow found a relevant stint under the government-sponsored Graduate Industry Traineeships scheme, or GRIT.

Halfway into his six-month traineeship at a professional networking platform, he was offered a conversion to a full-time role, which he accepted.

To address job anxieties, the government announced up to 800 public and private sector traineeships under the GRIT scheme from October 2025.

Today, however, the scheme remains undersubscribed. As of June, 550 trainees have been placed in more than 40 private sector companies and over 50 public sector agencies, the Skills and Workforce Development Agency said.

The agency did not say how many trainees had secured full-time roles.

CNA has previously reported about students “stacking” internships to stay competitive in the job market.

Mr Chow said most of his peers are graduating a year later than him because they took leaves of absence to fit more internships into their schooling years.

He bucked the trend by graduating on time and doing internships after that instead. This was not ideal because some employers still prefer undergraduate interns, he said.

“If I could redo time, I would extend my academic days to four years to do (a leave of absence) and do internships instead, to stack and more or less secure a full-time job before I graduate.”

Likewise, computer science graduate Mr Ng said he has changed his attitude towards his first job because of the challenges he encountered during his job search.

To give himself more options beyond software engineering, he is exploring becoming an artificial intelligence engineer or working in cybersecurity.

Mr Ng has observed that openings in AI engineering usually require master’s or PhD qualifications. But formally re-skilling through further studies is “financially impossible” for him at this point in time.

His first job will likely be a training phase for him.

“Ideally, my first job would have been the start of my career where I am rooted into that company,” he said.

“I now see my first job more as a transitory place where I would go in to get the actual industrial experience that companies are actually looking for now.

“Because they are less likely to hire fresh graduates, more likely to look for junior engineers with existing experience.”

TAKING RISKS

At entrepreneurship platform Wavesparks, chief executive officer Lim Ee Ling noted a trend of falling risk appetites among youths emerging at the end of 2025.

Through her platform, which works with youths aged 15 to 25 who are aspiring founders and social entrepreneurs, she sensed that more youths were feeling drawn to take on jobs in high-quality firms rather than build on their own.

But in the past three to four months, this has changed perceptibly, Ms Lim said.

She attributed the shift to accessible artificial intelligence tools, which led more youths to realise that they do not need “super high-tech skills” to build something on their own.

While a volatile market typically drives young jobseekers to seek job security, some are reacting by making more strategic, albeit riskier, career decisions.

Ms Jae, for instance, refused to let market jitters make her risk-averse. Instead, she chose to be more calculated about the gambles she was willing to take.

“I decided that I want to go into an environment that’s more high-growth, even if it’s challenging and not necessarily the safest path,” she said, giving the example of a more entrepreneurial environment over a big, well-known company.

SMU’s Ms Guda said one's early career is often the best time to explore options, since responsibilities and commitments tend to grow over time.

“It is also easier to pivot into a new industry or role early on, while skills remain current and transferable.

“A switch later in one’s career is still possible, but usually requires upskilling through further studies, certifications or training to stay relevant.”

On the other hand, fresh graduate Toh Sue Anne, 24, spoke about how she has become more sensitive to risk given the present economic climate.

Initially, the psychology graduate at Singapore Management University (SMU) had thought about starting a home-based baking business after graduation to “see where it takes me”.

But facing the prospect of high ingredient costs and worries about sustaining a food business in a tough economy, she decided to take a more stable path.

Ms Toh’s job search was the most selective of the fresh graduates interviewed. She applied to fewer than 10 roles she believed would help her pursue further studies in psychology.

She was offered a full-time role shortly into an internship in the social services sector, and accepted the job. The salary exceeded her expectations, which she had set at a floor of S$3,000.

AI AND UNCERTAINTY

Several fresh graduates also spoke about the nuanced impact that AI has had on their job searches, which is not simply a case of the technology squeezing junior hires by reducing the availability of entry-level roles.

After all, MOM’s entry-level job vacancies data shows that openings are still widely available across all industries.

Rather, the graduates pointed to the uncertainty over how AI can create job opportunities and their worries about how the technology can quickly alter the demands of entry-level work.

NUS sociology and political science student Chloe Chan, 23, is set to graduate later this year.

Keen on a career in research and academia, she said that her worries about AI actually bothered her less as she read up on and applied for more jobs in her field.

Earlier this year, she completed an internship as an AI safety analyst at a tech giant. She acknowledged that the role was one that would not exist without AI adoption.

“Maybe for me it’s opening more doors, because I did get (an internship) thanks to AI. But I’m not sure how many doors it will close in the future. AI is moving so fast and we don’t know what it’s capable of,” she said.

No one can rule out the possibility that in five years’ time, AI could conduct interviews and people would not be needed to do qualitative analysis for research projects, she said.

NTU communications graduate Abdillah Akmal, 26, echoed the trepidation about AI even after accepting a role in a statutory board.

“I'm excited to start work, because in a sense it almost feels like having a job is a privilege,” he said.

But pointing to his friends who started work in the past few years, Mr Akmal said many of their job descriptions and responsibilities have already changed because of AI.

“There is that uncertainty that I come in with certain expectations, but then within maybe a few months something might change, and then I will need to readjust as well.”

SMU’s Ms Guda said the job search itself is a learning journey where graduates develop the judgment to evaluate offers thoughtfully and adjust their expectations along the way.

For fresh graduates making their way in the job market, a learning attitude may be the best way to ride out the sting of rejection and fears about the future.

Before engineering systems and design graduate Muhammad Irfan Djuanda found his job in a statutory board, he received multiple rejections from around 75 applications.

“I started questioning myself, what kind of skills am I lacking? What do I need to do? Is it not enough?” said the Singapore University of Technology and Design graduate.

Later in his search, he started reframing the interview process from a “very stressful and pressurising process to one that builds my experience” for future interviews.

This boosted his confidence and was “pivotal” in his job search, he said, adding that he will take this learning mindset as much as he can into his first job.