Only at SAESL will you be able to work with an exclusive range of Rolls Royce aircraft engines. And with BrightMinds, you might just land the job.

By Cheryl Lim

Imagine you are in a fully air-conditioned, spacious workshop with music playing softly in the background. The cool air and clear lighting create a comfortable environment for you to do your job maintaining and repairing aircraft engines for highly reputed commercial airlines.

This is a day in the life of 26-year-old Ng Yong Hua, a Trainee Inspector at Singapore Aero Engine Services Pte Ltd (SAESL).

“I studied aviation in school,” says the Mechanical Engineering graduate from Nanyang Technological University. “I preferred a more hands-on type of job, which only a few companies offered. SAESL was one of them.”

Job-hunting made easy
After graduating in mid-2008, Yong Hua went through several avenues in search of his dream job. Two months later, he clinched the traineeship programme with SAESL through BrightMinds, an online career fair focusing on campus recruitment.

“I only used BrightMinds. The other online portals were not very useful as I couldn’t find the jobs I wanted. For example, search fields were very general, like just ‘engineering’, where everything under that appears. But I knew what I wanted, and BrightMinds was able to offer that,” says Yong Hua.

BrightMinds, a series of online career fairs by JobsFactory, enables fresh graduates from specific tertiary groups – namely, university, polytechnic and ITE – to land jobs soon after graduation. Leading organisations comprising MNCs, established SMEs and government agencies hire through BrightMinds, a one-stop portal for submitting applications to these highly sought-after employers.

“BrightMinds is more convenient, faster, and has results. When, I applied for jobs through a newspaper advertisement, there was no news. But there were results when I went through BrightMinds,” he adds.

Similarly, for Human Resource Executive Chris Chiu, BrightMinds is an effective platform for the organisation to recruit suitable candidates who exhibit high potential.

“Young people are very IT savvy nowadays. The Internet is one of the first places they will go when they are searching for jobs. BrightMinds is in a niche market of its own with no other competitors. We have been using BrightMinds for the past two years mainly to hire our Trainee Technicians, who are ITE and polytechnic graduates,” she says.

Powered by passion
Established in 2001, SAESL is a joint venture between SIA Engineering Company, Rolls Royce, and Hong Kong Aero Engine Services Ltd. It specialises in maintenance, repair and overhaul of Rolls Royce Trent engines used in Airbus and Boeing airplanes. The company provides 24/7 assistance to its customers – namely Singapore Airlines, Emirates Airline, Malaysia Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, and Thai Airways – and is able to customise engine maintenance solutions according to their requirements.

Every two to three days, SAESL receives aircraft engines for servicing. The engines are inspected and repaired by SAESL’s skilled workforce comprising inspectors like Yong Hua.

“During my previous internship with a manufacturing company, I found that the pace of work there was very fast. But here, everyone is very careful with his work, because the things we handle are very expensive. We might take a longer time, but we are very careful. We do things with a very high standard. It’s about quality work,” he observes, highlighting that it takes about 56 days to fully overhaul an aircraft engine.

As a Trainee Inspector, Yong Hua also has a supervisory role, managing a team of 18 with two other inspectors. Naturally, once people – and not just machines – come into the picture, challenges abound.

“The most challenging part is dealing with people, because technical stuff can be learnt. As a supervisor, I manage some people who are much older than me. That, and interpersonal communication, is the tough part,” says Yong Hua.

“I’ve grown to have better interaction skills with people from all races and ages. Here, you get to talk to people who are old, young, from all sorts of backgrounds. That’s something very interesting I’ve experienced within this one year,” he adds.

Beyond daily work, Yong Hua also has opportunities to spearhead other projects towards improving the workplace, such as how to increase efficiency through optimising the layout of work areas where modular repairs are done (also known as “cells”).

“At the moment, I’m planning the layout for my cell using Six Sigma concepts,” he enthuses. “I design where to put the machines, fan blades, and how to maximise the use of space for greater efficiency. It’s called ‘lean manufacturing’.”

Strength from inside out
For an organisation with an 800-strong headcount, SAESL makes the unusual effort of looking into the wellbeing of every single employee and seeking to foster close working relationships through regular company-wide events.

“The average age of our 800 employees ranges from 25 to 35 years. Therefore when we organise activities like bowling, futsal, D&D, and barbeques, the participation rate is high and we all have fun together,” says Chris.

Certainly, strong employee engagement and the core principles of teamwork also equip the organisation to manage ever bigger challenges and grow from strength to strength.

“We are constantly improving and upgrading ourselves to keep up with our competitors,” adds Chris.

Going the distance
The Trainee Inspector programme at SAESL spans four years, comprising six months of theoretical training, eighteen months of on-the-job training, and finally a two-year bond to the organisation.

Diploma- and ITE-holders will join the company as Trainee Technicians, and become full-fledged Technicians after one year of training.

However, opportunities abound, as employees will have the chance to move laterally to other job functions later in their career, if they fit the bill.

“We look for people who are enthusiastic and keen to join the aviation industry, candidates who come well-prepared for interviews. Sadly, up to 75% of candidates nowadays do not prepare before attending interviews,” says Chris.

Yong Hua, who takes a daily commute from the west to the eastern-most point of the island every day, personifies this enthusiasm. Distance is no deterrent to him.

“It’s more important to do something that you like, rather than do something because it’s nearer or for the money,” he affirms.