How are Singapore youth hashing out their career aspirations?

She thought her first job out of university would be at a large multinational, working in software engineering.

But Miss Cheng Ruo Xi’s plans took a different trajectory when a friend alerted her to an opening at a robotics lab at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), where the former was in her final year of studying computer science in 2019.

The role involved developing small, modular robots that could be used as building blocks for larger robots, and Miss Cheng found palpable satisfaction in seeing a team come together to translate software into physical movement.

Five years on, and landing a corporate job is nowhere on Miss Cheng’s radar.

Instead, the 28-year-old is focused on growing Rosen Bridge, a start-up offering robotics education services in both Singapore and China.

She and three like-minded friends co-founded the start-up in 2023 to improve access to training for aspiring roboticists to ensure robots continue keeping up with recent artificial intelligence advances.

Miss Cheng Ruo Xi, 28, co-founded a robotics education start-up, even though she initially thought she would work briefly in a start-up to give herself an edge for jobs in larger companies. ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN

“I thought I was just going to work at a start-up for a little bit and then, maybe, join a bigger company with the knowledge I had gained,” Miss Cheng said with a laugh.

Her experience shows how youth in Singapore navigate career choices in a world of greater flux and opportunity: mindfully striving for enriching careers, yet not letting a rigid plan get in the way of seizing the day.

To understand their career priorities and aspirations, The Straits Times commissioned a survey where 1,000 young Singaporeans and permanent residents aged 18 to 30 were polled by market research firm Kantar in September 2025.

The respondents comprised 203 full-time students, 56 individuals in their first job, and 702 experienced workers in their second job and beyond. The rest were either unemployed or serving full-time national service.

Priorities, and the price to pay

Young adults in the ST-Kantar survey prioritise purpose over prestige, with three in four preferring meaningful work to fancy titles.

Passion counts, but salary and advancement still influence decisions: 65 per cent of respondents said they would trade personal time for career growth, with almost a fifth saying they would not choose a low-pay job they love over a high-pay job they dislike.

Experienced workers were the only group to rank passion higher than job security.

“In today’s economic slowdown, where even fresh graduates are struggling to find jobs, we do see some of these sentiments (like passion) taper off,” said Ms Cindy Lee, country manager of recruitment firm Adecco Singapore.

“People who might have jumped ship earlier are now testing the waters first – applying elsewhere before making a move. There is more cautiousness today than before.”

This is what observers globally have called a “flight to stability”, especially among early-career workers.

The survey also found that experienced workers in their second job and beyond were significantly more satisfied with their current job, career progress and the alignment between their current job and long-term career goals than those in their first jobs.

“First jobbers” tended to be less satisfied with their current job, their progression, and the alignment with their longer-term career aspirations.

“This is fairly common and expected, as many first-jobbers experience a reality shock with their first full-time job,” said Assistant Professor Jared Nai, an organisational psychologist with Singapore Management University (SMU).

In the workplace, personal relationships, prior background and other intangible factors that do not directly pertain to job performance come into play, which can come as a culture shock to first-job holders bred in the meritocratic education system, Prof Nai said.

The 1,000 polled reported an unstable job market, high competition in their field and limited skills or experience as their top three obstacles to achieving their long-term career goals. A significantly higher proportion of those aged 18 to 24 expressed high competition, limited skills or experience, and potential burnout or stress as obstacles than those aged 25 to 30.

Ms Linda Teo, country manager of ManpowerGroup Singapore, said struggles with job fit and career clarity are not uncommon among early-career workers, but these challenges do not have to be resolved through trial and error alone.

“While hands-on experience remains valuable, there are ways to reduce risk and stress before mismatches occur,” she said.

“Career coaching, skills assessments, and job shadowing can provide insights into roles and work environments without requiring prolonged misalignment.”

Almost half of those surveyed said they are unsure of their ideal career.

And across full-time workers, part-time workers and full-time students polled, 13 per cent to 15 per cent also reported they were undecided on what they hope to do over the next one to three years.

Some degree of indecision is natural, say experts ST spoke to.

Even among undergraduates who have done internships or started their own businesses before entering university, “not many can actually articulate what they want to do and what is available when they graduate”, noted Prof Nai.

“On the surface, it seems that students are increasingly well-prepared and have mapped out their career aspirations even before they enter university,” he said.

It’s just that the system and environment nowadays encourage people to appear prepared and confident well before they should.

Assistant Professor Jared Nai

To help students gain clarity, private education provider SIM Global Education in June 2025 launched its CareerSense app, which assesses their values, skills and personality traits to generate a tailored list of potential roles and career paths.

SIM deputy provost Timothy Chan said: “While some learning through direct experience is inevitable, we believe that young employees can significantly improve the likelihood of finding a good job fit with the right tools and support.”

First-year business management student Damian Lau, 21, hopes to apply what he learns at SMU to both his future career and his current side hustle.

He has run a pet food business for the past year, which he aspires to expand after graduation.

While he acknowledged that entrepreneurship comes with risks, Mr Lau said: “I would much rather fail trying out than regret not starting my own business.”

He has not ruled out getting a corporate job, and, while interest and passion are important, the pay is what he deems the most important in a career.

Stories from his relatives and personal anecdotes of entrepreneurs posted on social media and other websites have shaped his idea of what a great career could be.

“I also do value jobs with more flexibility and less rigid outcomes.”

According to the survey, internships strongly influence career decisions, with over half of those polled crediting the internships they have completed for clarifying their career interests.

As for early-career workers, their uncertainty partly reflects an employment landscape where roles evolve quickly under technological and business shifts, said Ms Teo.

“Even with proactive steps such as internships, career fairs and networking during education, gaining clarity can be a challenge.”

She said that while all those experiences provide valuable exposure, the focus is often on short-term skills rather than mapping long-term trajectories.

First-jobbers credit their internships for clarifying their own career interests and guiding their early decisions, while for students, internships are about gaining skills and building networks.

Misss Dion Lim’s career journey over the years is defined by the lengths she has gone to build up her expertise with hands-on experience, staying true to herself even in a complex job market.

Her long-term goal is to work in regional HR, specialising in compensation and benefits.

She studied psychology in polytechnic as she hoped to work in the field, but discovered through an organisational psychology class that her interests really lay in the field of HR.

To confirm that HR was truly the field for her, Miss Lim took on contract roles in the HR departments of various multinationals while studying for a degree in HR management at the Singapore University of Social Sciences.

Having worked with colleagues with cross-border responsibilities, the 27-year-old realised that she wanted to take on such a role herself in future.

To gain direct international work experience, Miss Lim moved to Sydney in October on a one-year working holiday visa, hoping to land a job in HR.

I was trying to find regional roles in Singapore… (but) it was very difficult because I didn’t have any prior experience.

Miss Dion Lim

Miss Lim even took up an Australian certification as a payroll specialist before her arrival, but she admitted that the job search has been challenging, and she has secured only one interview so far.

She surmised that one key hurdle is that it is relatively unusual for someone to seek a professional role while on the working holiday visa, as most take on work in hospitality or farming.

Moving to Sydney, “living on my own for the first time in my life, everything, it is pretty daunting, very high risk”, said Ms Lim, who considers herself risk-averse.

“But I’d say I have no regrets.”

For Miss Desiree Chang, 24, “interning” at her own retail business has helped clarify her future career path.

She started Woofie, a vintage and thrift apparel store, in 2021, after finishing her A-level examinations, and has been building the business with her partner, Mr Matthew Tan, 23, since.

They now run an online store and two physical stores in Bugis.

Miss Desiree Chang will be stepping away from Woofie, which she has run with her boyfriend Matthew Tan (right) since 2021, to take on a new job in 2026. ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN

“I narrowed down my choices to PR (public relations) and marketing communications, social media. I guess those are the jobs I could do as a communications major,” said Miss Chang.

She graduated with a communications and new media degree from the National University of Singapore earlier in 2025.

“With my business, I realised that I do like to see the business side of things as well, even though I’m not a business major. So, Woofie actually did help me broaden that scope for me in my job search and it really helped in my interviews as well.”

Miss Chang is stepping away from her business to start at a job in trade promotion from 2026, a role she would never have considered had it not been for her own entrepreneurial foray.

Miss Lim said watching videos by content creators who had found work on a working holiday visa helped her better prepare for the transition and validate her decision.

“It gave me a bit more confidence and security that this train of thought is not as uncommon as I thought it’d be,” she said.

“When someone with a similar experience as me has a path I want to take, I know that there is a possibility of it working out.”

According to the ST-Kantar survey, social media is the strongest influence on career aspirations, especially for students and experienced workers, while first-jobbers focus on job market trends.

And employers are tapping the trend, getting interns and young employees to create social media content that gives young talent a window into work life in their company or sector.

PSA Singapore’s Instagram account @internsatPSA does just that, with light-hearted, relatable content produced with the help of successive batches of interns along the way.

Mr Ahmad Syarifuddin Azhar, 24, was the star of the viral skit, which clocked over three million views.

“I actually filmed that one or two weeks after I converted to being (temporary) staff, so I felt like it was a very cheeky way to memorialise that,” said the former branding and communications intern, who snagged a three-month contract till end-November 2025.

During his stint with the port operator, part of his job entailed conceptualising, filming and editing content ranging from witty skits to short explainers that demystify the industry.

Mr Syarifuddin, who is in his final year of maritime studies at Nanyang Technological University, said his six-month internship allowed him to bridge what he has learnt in school with real port operations.

The Instagram account was launched by the port operator’s HR team in 2018, with the aim of exposing more youth to the range of prospects available in the sector. The account now has nearly 3,000 followers, with top posts receiving as many as over 400,000 likes.

Mr Ahmad Syarifuddin Azhar, 24, created Instagram content for @internsatPSA during his internship and subsequent three-month contract at PSA Singapore. ST PHOTO: BRIAN TEO

Mr Syarifuddin learnt that his video had gone viral through friends outside the industry, who told him his work was being pushed to their social media feeds.

“It’s really heartening to know we are reaching out to, and diversifying, our audiences,” he said.

Asked if the post was a hint to PSA, Mr Syarifuddin laughed and said he is keeping his post-graduation options open.

However, he added that the PSA stint helped him realise he is drawn to roles that involve creative thinking and building communities.

Ms Evelyn Seah, the port operator’s head of HR in Singapore, said the Instagram account has “helped candidates come in with a clearer picture of our culture: one that is collaborative, hands-on and open”.

Overall application numbers have almost doubled since PSA stepped up overall outreach and engagement efforts, including social media outreach, increased campus presence, career open houses and fireside chat sessions held at PSA’s premises, among other things.

“While our hiring standards remain consistent, we have seen stronger engagement and interest from students who resonate with the content and appreciate an environment where they can learn and contribute without compromising fun and creativity,” Ms Seah said.

Produced by: Lee Pei JieLoh Le EnStephanie AdelineGrace TaySuneeta DeviCheong Poh KwanJoanna Seow

Remarks: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding.