While PMD riders were up in arms when the Government first issued a ban on PMDs, an inspiring story surfaced in a small corner on the interwebs. This is the story of Sharon GJ Ong and how she found a job after 16 years out of the working world.
It all started when her friend Ng Kwok Hua, shared a post on his Facebook that urged Grab riders to take up NTUC’s Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) offer to help them find alternative employment, should they wish to switch jobs.
She chimed in commending the initiative and sharing her own personal experience with e2i and how they helped job match her. She also highlighted two issues that tended to hamper job-hunting efforts – 1) help refusal and 2) ignorance.
Sharon also shared that agencies such as e2i and SkillsFuture are getting better at bridging the gaps between employer and potential employees and that in an evolving knowledge economy, there would be more emphasis on skill sets rather than purely relevant experience. She drives home the point that e2i also does its part in changing employers’ mindsets by teaching them to “take a more nuanced approach to hiring”.
The conversation between Sharon and Kwok Hua must really have inspired the latter as he dedicated a whole post to his friend and her experience. Sharon shared the process of attending the employability workshop and a caregiving training module before taking on her job. She praised e2i for being hands-on and counselling people individually, expressing how she loves her current job.
We hope Sharon’s experience inspires fellow job seekers to go the agency route and experience for themselves the various employability workshops and job matching alternatives that agencies such as e2i and SkillsFuture can offer.
Half wacky, half wonderful. Lives life to travel and eat… oh and for bubble tea too!
