Many job advertisements in Singapore ask applicants to provide their previous/current and expected salary. This information could be used to:
1) Quickly weed out candidates who earn/expect well above the salary the employer wants to pay
2) Have a better understanding of your salary expectations, so that they don’t pay you too much more than you expect (sometimes even if they think the job role justifies a higher amount!)
While you don’t want to upset potential employers by not providing information they explicitly ask for, you don’t need to provide exactly what they ask for either.
My recommendation is to give a broad range for both the previous/current and the expected salary. Something like this, for example:
Example 1 -> Previous/Current/Expected salary range: SGD 4,000 - SGD 6,000
Example 2 -> Previous/Current salary: SGD 4,000 - SGD 6,000; Expected Salary: SGD 5,000 - SGD 7,000
This achieves a few things:
- You provide them with the information they ask for
- You minimise the chances of being weeded out in early stages
- You leave enough room for negotiating a fair salary, once you progress through the selection process and have a better understanding of the exact job scope
Hi Amit,
On purchasing power parity bais (Not just mere conversion from Sing Dollar to INR) if a person at a middle management level earning INR Rs 1lac per month in India then how much he should earn in SGD per month, to buy the same amount of goods and services in Singapore?
I have no idea Tejas . Not completely up-to-date with the Indian market.
You could check Payscale and the various salary surveys (for Singapore), to get some indication of mean/median compensation, based on experience, sector, etc.
Perhaps the BigMac/Ipod index, coupled with a search on ‘singapore cost of living’ can shed some light as well.