Looking Beyond Grades: A Reminder for Singapore Employers

Speaking to more than 300 students at the Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum at NUS on 7 September 2026, Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health Ong Ye Kung addressed graduates entering a tighter job market. He urged employers to ease the “arms race” over grades and internships, and to assess candidates holistically rather than on academic qualifications alone.

MOM’s own data points the same way. Academic qualifications were not the main determinant in hiring for 79.6% of vacancies in 2025, up from 78.8% in 2024.

For employers, the practical question is which competencies a role genuinely requires, and whether the selection criteria are testing for those or for proxies.

Video: @mothershipsg on Instagram

Two notes for the upload. Use Instagram’s embed code rather than downloading the video — it’s Mothership’s content, and the embed is the licensed way to show it. And the brief is what gets indexed, since the video itself isn’t, so keep the text on the page rather than relying on the reel.

If she wants a call to action at the end, the natural one is a line pointing to the vacancy brief form, since this sits right next to Article 3 on skills-based hiring in her series.