5 Ways MySkillsFuture Can Unlock Your Employment Potential

Times are hard. And you have been looking for a job for the past few months with no success. I understand that feeling, because I had been through the same. Twice. Once in the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, and once through the pandemic recession of 2020. You feel like a plastic bag drifting through the wind. You feel so helpless and you keep saying to yourself, “If there’s anything I could do to improve my chances of snaring a job, I will do it!”

Thankfully, hope is not lost. For Singaporeans, there is a handy online portal that we can access to unlock our employment potential. MySkillsFuture (https://www.myskillsfuture.sg/) is a one-stop portal managed by SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) to help Singaporeans pursue ways to make themselves more employable. 

Yes, that portal is more than for you to check how much SkillsFuture Credit you have left. There’s an assessment to help you evaluate your career interests and match your personality to potential jobs. You can also look for a course that can help you match your skills level to your dream job. And to help you complete the training, there is also a range of training assistance you can tap on. And these are some of the features of MySkillsFuture that, if we manage carefully, can help us unlock our employability potential!

MySkillsFuture is like a Singaporean LinkedIn, but supercharged. Even better, it’s for Singaporeans only!

What Is MySkillsFuture?

According to the official website, MySkillsFuture is a portal that “enables Singaporeans to make informed learning and career choices, so that they can pursue their skills and career development throughout their lives.”

In human language, it is a place where you can manage your past learning qualifications, research on jobs and industries, and to make plans to snag those jobs. 

SkillsFuture Singapore talks a lot about “increasing employability of Singaporeans”. Although it was a short and precise description, many people told me they didn’t understand “employability”. SSG is actually referring to how we can be more desirable to employers. That, in turn, will make them more likely to hire us to fill a position.

We are more “employable” when we have the skills that the employers want. We are also more employable when we have past experience that we can bring to the new company. Similarly, we are more employable when we show an attitude to adapt to the changing business environment.

All of these leverages can be found in MySkillsFuture.

For example, all of our past qualifications and certificates are stored in MySkillsFuture. This makes it easier for us to show employers that we have the skills they want. Additionally, by taking the course found on the portal, we also show that we have the right attitude to adapt to the challenges of the working world.

In short, MySkillsFuture is like a Singaporean LinkedIn, but supercharged. Even better, it’s for Singaporeans only!

Manage Your Certificates and Licenses With Skills Passport

One of the most wonderful and easily accessible features of MySkillsFuture is the Skills Passport. All of our qualifications, from PSLE, “O”-Levels, NITEC, Diploma and even to Bachelor’s degree can be found in the Skills Passport. Basically, if you had studied in Singapore government schools before starting work, your certificates would be found there.

The certificates were created with the latest blockchain technology, so that when we share these certificates securely with potential employers, they can easily verify the certificates and be assured that our certificates (and hence our skills) are authentic. 

There are exceptions to what certificates would be uploaded by MOE into Skills Passport. For example, many professional courses by local universities and polytechnics are still not loaded onto the platform, though it was mentioned that it is akan datang. Additionally, degrees or certifications from private training schools are also not found in the Skills Passport. Whether or not they would upload their certifications onto Skills Passport depends on how each Training Provider wants to work with SSG.

That being said, we can still upload those missing certificates ourselves onto Skills Passport. While these certificates will not have the “Verified” status by SSG or be stored in the blockchain format, it still makes it easy for us to send all of our certificates to potential employers via MySkillsFuture.

You can find out more about how to access Skills Passport, and how you can make use of Skills Passport to give your job search a boost.

Discover Yourself With A Personality Assessment Tool

Another useful tool found on MySkillsFuture would be the personality type assessment tool. The tool consists of 3 components, Career Interests, Skills Confidence and Work Values.

Unlike those shady personality tests we do on social media, the self assessment tools are based on established studies.

The Career Interests and Skills Confidence tests, based on Kuder Career Interest Assessment, identify the 3 significant traits that a person has. The 6 personality traits are: Investigative, Realistic, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional.

The Work Values test, based on Super’s Work Values Inventory-revised, focus on: Workplace, Supervision, Co-workers, Prestige, Achievement, Income, Creativity, Lifestyle, Security Independence, Variety and Challenge.

The Career Interest section finds our interest level in various job activities. The traits that show up the strongest will indicate the types of jobs and industries we can pursue our careers in. 

The second Kuder assessment surveys ourSkills Confidence, identifying traits based on our confidences in performing work tasks. The Skills Confidence test matches our skills to jobs, while the Career Interest matches jobs to our interest and passion.

Finally, the Work Values assessment identifies what work values we hold dearly and which careers match our values. It has been suggested that people are more motivated when they work at a company with values matching their personal values. Therefore, this assessment helps us find jobs from which we will derive more motivation during our career.

Where Do You Find The Assessment?

The self assessment tools can be found by hovering over the main menu at the top of the main page of MySkillsFuture. At Resources, a menu containing the Assessment link would pop out.

At the Assessment page, click on the icon “6 Personality Types – What Are You” to open up another menu containing the 3 tools.

Upon clicking any of the assessments, you would be prompted to log in to your MySkillsFuture account via SingPass. Thereafter, you can continue with the assessments. 

All results would be saved to our MySkillsFuture account, so it is fine to complete some assessments and leave the others for another day. I understand… I’m not very fond of clicking through questions that sound similar too!

Find Out What It Takes To Get To Your Dream Job

After completing each individual assessment, the system generates a list of occupations that match your personalities and work values. For example, I had a Skills Confidence of Social, Conventional and Enterprising. Based on those values, I was found to be suitable for careers in the Air Transport, HR and Hotels and Accommodation industries, to name a few.

When we click on the suggested jobs under the “Job Information” column, we will be brought to the job role page, complete with the Job Description and industries relevant to the job role. The personalities that are characteristic for the job roles can also be found on the right side bar. There is also a link to the courses that are relevant to for one to pick up skills required of the job role.

For people looking to start a career or switch to a new career, the job description page serves as a way to understand yourself and the dream job you would like to be in. The list of sugested certification and courses required to carry out the job function also helps us chart our professional development for the new job role.

Have you ever wondered why you don’t seem to be able to perform in a job, even though it had been your dream to land in that job? For in-service workers, the personality tests also help us understand whether our personality matches those that were required of the particular job role. From there, we can easily identify personality type mismatches, and go about filling that gap with training.

Additionally, we can also look at the personality type and training requirements of a job role up the hierarchy. By matching those requirements with our own personality assessment, we can also work out our own training roadmap to prepare ourselves for fitting into the next role up the career ladder!

Upon completing all 3 assessments, the system will also aggregate all results and generate a list of suggested occupations. I shall leave it here on whether you prefer to explore the job suggestions after each assessment, or after completing all 3. 

Look For Courses On Training Exchange To Level Up Your Skills

After analysing your personality type and researching on the description of the job that matches your personality type, the next step is to look for relevant training to fill in the skills and personality gap.

For example, in order for me to advance to the role of Human Resources Manager, I will have to close the gap for “Social” and “Enterprising”. By attending courses like WSQ Specialist Diploma in Leadership and People Management, I would be able to train myself in those 2 personality types.

These courses can be found by running a search on MySkillsFuture Training Exchange.

MySkillsFuture contains a depository of all the courses that are approved by SSG. Other than finding a course that matches your training needs, we can also be assured that the courses are either eligible for SSG funding (i.e. you pay only 10% – 50% of the full course fees), or that you won’t be wasting money on earning a certificate not recognised by Singapore employers.

Read More: Top skills to have in 2021 and how to acquire them

Skills to Have in 2021 to Overcome The Economic Downturn (And What Courses To Take)

After entering the keyword in the search box and clicking on the Search button, you can further filter the results by using the filter options in the left side bar of the results page.

Side track: While you’re at it, check out how you can search for an SGUnited Skills programme to prepare yourself for a career switch in this economic downturn! You can also jump straight to find out which are best SGUnited Skills Programmes around.

Uncover Training Assistance To Help You Complete Your Training

When you’re out of job and lacking a steady income, that diploma or professional certification programme will never be cheap enough to attend. However, the Singapore government has rolled out plenty of training assistance to help jobseekers. And the best place to uncover those hidden chests of power-ups is MySkillsFuture. 

By hovering your mouse over the main menu at the top of MySkillsFuture home page, move over to Digital Resources and you can find the various training assistance under the “Individuals” of the pop up menu.

Other than checking out your remaining SkillsFuture Credit, you can also explore training assistance like the SkillsFuture Qualification Award, which is a cash reward for individuals who completes a full WSQ qualification, or the SkillsFuture Study Award, which supports those with some work experience to deepen their expertise in their respective fields. Fresh graduates can also check out SkillsFuture Work-Study Programmes, which allows them to further their studies while working with an SSG employer-partner. 

Not many people can qualify for the training assistance listed above, since they were designed to encourage working adults to engage in long term training. However, SSG also has training assistance in place for people who are only looking to attend one or two courses to meet an immediate need at the workplace. Or people who are in between jobs.

The SSG course fee funding is applied to most courses approved by SSG. They are also only applicable for Singaporeans or PR. The subsidy can range from 60% (for most private training providers) to 90% (for SSG appointed Continuing Education Centres (CET)).

This funding also differs for individuals. People who are above 40 years old (mid-career professionals) will qualify for the higher tier of course fee subsidies. Workers who are earning less than $2,300 will also qualify for the Workfare Skills Support (WSS) scheme that provides training allowance and/or Training Commitment Award (“cash reward” in human language).

Of course, since this post is for those of us who are unemployed, the course fee subsidy and WSS would have applied those of us who have lost our jobs in this downturn.

Imagine getting paid for attending a course!

Illustration of Course Fee Subsidies And Allowances/Awards

Using SSG’s website, I found a course offered by Singapore Polytechnic that costs $1,000 (excl GST). Using the assumption of a 37 year-old learner, the nett fee after SSG funding is $321 (incl. GST) as published by Singapore Polytechnic. 

Under WSS, the learner will receive $210 in training allowance. This brings his effective course fees down to $111, which can be fully paid for using his SkillsFuture Credit. 

Note: If you are an NTUC member, you can also further subsidise your course fee with UTAP. You can use UTAP to pay for up to 50% of your subsidised course fees. In this case, the effective course fee is $55.50, which means saving your SkillsFuture Credit for another course!

Training Hours	35
Course Fee	$1,000.00
Nett Fee (incl GST) for a 37 year-old	$321.00
WSS Training Allowance (for self-sponsored learner above 35 years old and earning less than $2,300)	$6 x 35hrs = $210
Effective Course Fee	$111.00
UTAP (Not SSG related; only for NTUC members)	$55.50

Here’s another cost breakdown assuming that the learner is above 40 years old.

Training Hours	35
Course Fee	$1,000.00
Nett Fee (incl GST) for a 37 year-old	$121.00
WSS Training Allowance (for self-sponsored learner above 35 years old and earning less than $2,300)	$6 x 35hrs = $210
Effective Course Fee	-$89.00

In this case, the learner is actually getting back $89 in cash for attending the course!

You can find out more about SSG’s course fee funding for self-sponsored individuals here: https://www.ssg.gov.sg/content/dam/ssg-wsg/ssg/WorkfareSkillsSupport/Course%20Fee%20Funding%20for%20Self-sponsored%20Individuals.pdf

Parting Words

Being out of job is tough. As I had mentioned in my previous posts, facing rejections while seeing our savings dwindle is torturous. However, MySkillsFuture website contains a load of tools that we can leverage on to unlock our employability potential.

The Skills Passport showcases our skills, certifications and licenses to potential employers. We can also upload certificates that have yet to be included under the scheme. Together, Skills Passport provides a convenient way for us to share our certificates digitally and securely with employers.

The personality assessment tools also help us discover our Career Interests, Skills Confidence and Work Values that we treasure, and matching them to jobs. By analysing the profiles of suggested jobs, we can then chart out training that can bridges our gaps to our dream jobs.

Next, the training programmes can easily be found using SSG’s Training Exchange, also found on MySkillsFuture portal. Top the search with the range of training assistance provided by SSG, it is possible for unemployed people to receive money while attending a course to venture into a new field!

Of course, the features on MySkillsFuture is not a magic pill that ends unemployment. However, coupled with an eye-catching resume, strategic job search skills as well as a well-prepared interview, snagging that coveted job in this difficult time becomes less daunting than before!

If you find this post useful, please share it with your friends! Find out more about SGUnited Skills programmes, where we look at them in numbers from various perspectives. Till then, stay curious!