According to a poll by JobsCentral, 75 per cent of the 372 respondents said they intend to seek new jobs. (Photo …

By Winifred Tan

A new year heralds new beginnings. Now is the time when many of us start reflecting on the previous year — good or bad — and making plans to start anew, be it in terms of going back to school, sorting out our personal life, taking up a new position at work, or even making a career switch.

This year, job-hopping appears to be the most popular New Year's resolution among working Singaporeans.

According to a recent poll conducted by JobsCentral, 56% of the 372 respondents surveyed are intending to job hop once they have received their year-end bonus. 25% are planning to stay on, while the remaining 19% are seeking greener pastures due to a lack of bonus. This works out to a total of 75%, or three in every four workers, who will be busy prowling the job market this month.

If you're one of this 75% out hunting for a new job, here are our five suggested resolutions for 2012. May they kick-start a happy and fulfilling career for you in the year ahead!

1. Get organised

Consider taking a few days off to beat away that post-vacation blues. (Photo courtesy of JobsCentral)

By Juliet Soh and Farhan Shah

Are you only just returning from a long year-end vacation and dreading the thought of going back to work? You're not alone. At this time of the year, the ailments that usually plague you seem to be more pronounced and the queue at your general practitioner seems to be longer than usual.

Here are some tips to help you make the spectre of returning back to your desk that less intimidating:

• Tidy up your desk: The start of a new year provides you with a great opportunity to clean up the clutter that has accumulated on your desk and in the drawers. It also gives you an outlet to slowly increase your productivity levels, especially in the first few work days when you're feeling more lethargic than usual.
• Take a few days off: Consider taking one or two days off after your vacation. This serves as a buffer for flight delay and jetlag. If you can't afford to take extra days off, consider flying back home on a Friday so you can rest over the weekend and go back to

Employers usually look at a prospective hire's qualifications. (Photo courtesy of JobsCentral)

Further education is essential for career progression, or even survival, in the modern corporate world. Yet, there is a declining trend in the number of Singaporeans intending to upgrade their skill sets in recent years.

According to the 2011 JobsCentral Learning Rankings & Survey, which polled 3,413 Singapore residents between the ages of 16 and 65 between August and September 2011, about 3 out of every 10 respondents reveal that they have no intention of pursuing further education — an increase from 2 in every 10 in 2009.

Heng Teng Teng, a facilitator and career coach at GROW, cautions that the pursuit of further education should just not just be for the sake of acquiring the paper certificate but also whether it is vital to your individual career goals.

"A post-graduate qualification will be useful if mastery of a specific domain subject is your focus. Ask yourself: Where are you heading towards in your career? What skills do you want to develop? A good post-graduate programme

By Juliet Soh

After obtaining higher levels of qualifications, most working people in Singapore expect significant pay increases, according to the 2011 JobsCentral Learning Rankings & Survey.

70.3 per cent of the respondents in the survey expect pay increases of at least 25 per cent more after obtaining their next level of academic qualifications,  Further, 22.8 per cent of young working adults expect to be paid at least 50 per cent more.

A total of 3,413 respondents took the 2011 JobsCentral Learning Rankings & Survey, which was conducted online from August to September this year. The survey respondents were predominantly young working adults aged 21-40 years old. This survey has an error margin of 1.68 per cent, at a 95 per cent confidence level and has been conducted every year since 2009.

Infographic by JobsCentral

Commenting on the relationship between pay increment and further education, Lim Der Shing, CEO of JobsCentral Group, said, "For most employers, pay raise decisions are usually based on job

Many people will be working through the holiday season. (Photo courtesy of JobsCentral)

By Eliza Hamizah

'Tis the season for grand light-ups, heavy discounts (or mark-ups), and three-hour queues! Christmas is the time to be jolly, spend some good ol' quality time with the family, or simply to kick back our shoes, crack open a can of soda and enjoy the day off.

Christmas, however, also happens to be one of the busiest periods of the year so, naturally, we need all hands on deck to make our holiday season smooth sailing. Unfortunately, while we're busy wrapping our gifts and making last-minute celebratory preparations, we tend to forget those who make the Christmas  magic happen. What would we do without them? We pick four groups of people we should show a little more appreciation to.

Retail Staff

Serving customers on a normal day can already be quite difficult but the stress level ratchets up even more as Christmas approaches. Playing Santa Claus, panicking about last minute plans, and trying to accomplish our to-do lists can turn even the most Zen of people crazy.

Sadly,

Many JobsCentral poll respondents feel that a gift to the boss costing S$20 to S$49 is appropriate. (JobsCentral …

By Jonathan Tay

To many people, the impending Christmas season is a time of buying gifts, sharing, and flying off to a tropical island to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life. Despite our Asian culture, gift-giving has slowly but surely become a part of our lives and has been known to cause heart palpitations to some. In particular, one may find the process of choosing the right gifts extremely vexing. This ordeal can be especially distressing if your boss is among the recipients in your gift list.

Selecting an appropriate gift for the boss can be an extremely delicate affair. An overly exorbitant gift might immediately grant you the "bootlicker" tag by co-workers while an inexpensive gift may come off as insincere. It is no surprise that many would decide to avoid the complication altogether and convince themselves that the boss is an unfeeling cyborg who can afford better gifts himself or herself.

According to a recent poll conducted by JobsCentral, nearly half of the

How to combat, counter and conciliate five types of difficult people you meet in the workplace. (Photo courtesy …

By Winifred Tan

Where there's a group of people, there's bound to be conflict. Biology dictates that we all think and work very differently from one another, and this difference surfaces especially prominently in the workplace, where a potpourri of diverse characters ranging from the easygoing to the dramatic to the over-fastidious are thrown together in close contact for approximately eight hours a day, five days a week, 250 business days a year.

Unlike the days of school, the workplace requires every individual to put aside his differences and work well with his fellow colleagues, supervisors, and subordinates in order to be productive. It is therefore imperative for you, as a member of a larger organisational matrix, to recognise what makes your co-workers tick.

To help you better understand the nuances of workplace behaviour and conflict resolution, we've put together a list of the top five difficult personalities that you're likely to meet at work and how to best to deal with

Get a nod from your boss on your performance by following these tips. (Photo courtesy of JobsCentral)

By Farhan Shah

The end of the year in Singapore usually signals many things; it signals the start of the monsoon season, the introspective review of last year's completed resolutions (and the subtle amnesia of broken ones), and the arrival of the dreaded appraisal spectre that usually decides whether you'll be traipsing on the beaches of Barbados or wading through knee-deep muddy water in Bangkok for your holidays.

Consistent work throughout the year usually guarantees a decent appraisal score and a well-padded bonus that can buy that next big-ticket item. However, having a few screw-ups during the year also doesn't mean that you'll be getting bad reviews as December rolls around.

Scientists have proven that, in general, most people will remember the first and last items on a list, or the first and last people they meet at events. Similarly, your bosses will remember the first few and the last few mistakes or accomplishments that you made in a year. This phenomenon is called the