By Charlene Tan

Beauty is more than skin deep. Ask any beauty therapist and you’ll find that joining the beauty industry requires professionalism, patience, and perpetual learning. This is where the core business of 21st Century Esthetics and Wellness Academy comes into play.

With a student-teacher ratio of 16:1, the school offers courses in facial therapy, personal enhancement, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) beauty, body therapy, and others. Since 2007, the school has also offered the Comité International D’Esthesthétique Et De Cosmétologie (CIDESCO) diploma – the world's most prestigious qualification in the field of esthetics and beauty therapy.

“Training for an internationally recognised beauty diploma will help me learn more in-depth knowledge like physiology, facial acupressure points and the skin’s epidermis layer,” says Mary Lee, an alumnus of the school and Branch Manager of 21st Century Beauty Spa.

By Tricia Chan

Andrew Glover, Regional Director of the International Compliance Association (ICA), talks about compliance the way a tech junkie might talk about the latest iPhone.

“You can wind me up and I can talk about compliance all day,” says Andrew, 46, who has been in the industry for more than 20 years. The key aim of compliance officers is to ensure that businesses and corporations comply with relevant laws and regulations in a changing financial landscape.

At ICA, which conducts courses on compliance, financial crime prevention and anti-money-laundering, the ultimate goal is for “people to leave the workshops with something they can take back to the office and actually change things for the better, for themselves, for their firms, for the industry, and ultimately, for the consumer”.

By Eugene Lim

Since independence, Singapore’s life expectancy has been rising consistently. The average Singaporean now lives up to about 80 years, up from 65 years half a century ago. Thanks to the Republic's excellent healthcare infrastructure, the figure is expected to ascend further, making the healthcare industry an evergreen and essential one. National University Health Systems (NUHS) is one of the core entities responsible for this praiseworthy phenomenon in Singapore.

Benevolent Business
For Clara Sin, the search for a “more meaningful and more stable” career led her to NUHS. After graduating from Nanyang Technological University with a Bachelor of Business (Banking & Finance) in 1993, she began her professional career in the financial industry before making the switch to healthcare in 2002. “I felt that healthcare meets both of my expectations. It's doing meaningful work and it offers better job stability as compared to other industries,” explains Clara.

Here’s what usually happens at an interview: You enter the room, answer some questions, talk about yourself, smile, and leave. Sounds simple? Unfortunately, that is hardly ever the case.

By Azhar Jalil

Job interviews are an entrenched part of the hiring process and considered the key step for deciding which candidate is best suited for a particular position.

At the same time, however, job interviews are also often highly subjective. Interviewers, being human, are naturally biased and thus discriminatory, whether explicitly or not. Also, interviews are frequently unstructured and therefore rather limited in terms of comparing candidates objectively.

Moreover, traditional face-to-face interviews demand substantial resources from employers but do not always effectively forecast a candidate’s actual working performance.

These factors have caused employers to take up alternative interview methods which are more valuable as predictive tools, so as to better assess potential hires in a more effective and holistic manner.

By Charlene Tan

Twenty-one-year-old Francesca Fiorendi has lived in Italy, France and Holland, and has now made Singapore her home. With parents who travelled frequently for work, she was exposed to the wonders of travel from a young age. Hence, her enthusiasm for the tourism industry comes as no surprise.

In October 2007, she enrolled with James Cook University Australia, Singapore Campus to study Business and Tourism & Hospitality Management. “I think that studying in an Australian university is a good way to complement theory with the living experience in Singapore, especially in a subject like Tourism. Plus, making friends from different backgrounds when we do group work is a great chance to see things from a different perspective than, say, if you were in a local university,” explains Francesca of her choice to study at the Singapore campus.

By Philip Tnee

“Cyber security” used to mean protecting a computer with a log-in password. But with computer users around the world becoming increasingly connected, IT security specialists are now expected to be more than technology gurus. As Michael Chin, a graduate from Raffles Education Corp College (RECC) says, “It means having the ability to adapt to various situations and job scopes without getting tied down by a specialisation in a certain field.”

The 24-year-old came across RECC’s course during a career fair, and was impressed by the comprehensive range of certifications under its InfoComm Security course. The course offers Advanced Diplomas leading to Bachelor of Science with honours degrees in InfoComm Security, and incorporates the contents of industry-acclaimed qualifications such as MCP, MCSA, MCSE, Security+, and CEH, accredited by Microsoft, CompTIA and EC-Council. “These certifications, together with my academic qualifications, are internationally recognised, and raises my career prospects tremendously when I attend job interviews,” says Michael, who emerged from RECC with an Advanced Diploma in Infocomm Security.

By Stella Seet

With the Integrated Resorts set to open their doors in a few months, the competitive tourism industry is burgeoning with potential for greater exponential growth. For tourism students Mary Grace Rogel Tamotsu and Steven Thant Min Thet, an education at the East Asia Institute of Management (EASB) is their stepping stone into the colourful world of tourism.

Mary has been passionate about tourism from a young age, when she was exposed to the field through her auntie who was in the hotel industry. After achieving a Diploma in Hotel Management from a private institution in Malaysia, she was eager to grow her knowledge of the field by furthering her education.

By Joyce Lin

There are some jobs that offer stability even in times of economic uncertainty, such as the field of accounting, which remains relevant and necessary to almost every company regardless of its industry. And for Clement Chan, 28, choosing the Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS) to further his education has given him a good and stable career as an auditor which he enjoys today.

Clement first graduated with a diploma in Accountancy from Ngee Ann Polytechnic, and decided to further his education with MDIS thereafter. “I have always had a passion for numbers and I heard from my friends that accountancy would provide a good career path,” he explains. “So I enrolled in MDIS after coming across an advertisement in the newspapers and ascertaining that it was a reputable school to enrol in.”

By Nabilah Husna A. Rahman

For Sim Kwang Mong, the world is a municipal learning ground. This 45-year-old and National University of Singapore (NUS) alumnus embodies the significance of lifelong learning and is an inspiration to many.

Kwang Mong, currently a full-time engineer at an agency of scientific research, shares that his desire to remain current was his impetus for pursuing a part-time degree in NUS after 20 years in the workforce.

“One of the main driving forces for me was to keep up with current technology and be connected,” he explains. “The part-time Bachelor of Technology course that I took up in NUS was relevant to my work.”

Some professionals would be hesitant, albeit keen, on diving back into education after securing careers in the workforce. But for Kwang Mong, learning is a lifelong practice. He believed that by furthering his education in NUS, he would become a more valuable asset to both his company and the industry. “NUS has a good global standing, being one of the well-recognised universities in the world. Taking a course there will add to your skill sets.”