“Study hard, get good grades, get a good job” is an often-heard mantra in Singapore. However, it is increasingly evident that academic accolades are not the only way to achieve fulfilment in life – especially in today’s fast-changing world.
Just as important in today’s world are practical and soft skills. Hou Hui Qing, a 24-year-old SIT Accountancy undergraduate tells us how she has grown to be a motivated and compassionate leader from her internship at Ah Hua Kelong, a fish farm. Also, Enif bin Omar, a 20-year-old who built his own thrift and vintage business, shares how he has developed a great sense of social awareness through it.
Changing the world starts with knowing yourself
For both Enif and Hui Qing, being self-aware kickstarted their journey. By understanding and following what mattered to them, they accomplished things they could be proud of. The seed of Enif’s business, Cappo’s Garage, for instance, was planted in 2018 when he was just 14. He had an interest in vintage fashion, and when he visited his parents’ retirement house in Malaysia, he found a thriving vintage fashion scene “way bigger than I’ve ever seen in my life”.
Enif then brought home vintage clothes for his friends and sold some of the garments on Carousell, a Singaporean online marketplace for second-hand items. His online sales took off and he ventured into setting up physical pop-up stores before eventually opening a permanent store in Far East Plaza. “It started as a hobby, but I grew to realise the opportunities available as I kept an open mind,” shares Enif, whose earnings from the business has allowed him to support himself through his studies in the past few years.
Hui Qing, who was similarly cognisant of her own interests, was personally invested in the “human-to-human relations” within organisations. “I think it’s very important to be empathetic, so I set my mind on doing an internship in human resources (HR),” she says.
This fondness for connection led to a serendipitous internship opportunity at Ah Hua Kelong when she was studying at Temasek Polytechnic. She was making a personal visit to a friend who worked as a chef in the restaurant, Scaled by Ah Hua Kelong, when she witnessed the familial working culture which drew her to the space. The boss was looking for someone to “help out with the accounts in the HR area”, so Hui Qing jumped at the opportunity.
Building confidence to walk the talk
By continually investing in their own interests, Hui Qing and Enif built confidence in their abilities and relationships with others. They not only improved on their own skills, but also the businesses in which they were involved.
Hui Qing’s communication and relationship management skills flourished because her internship experience was unlike that which she would have gotten in a more structured and corporatised setting. In Ah Hua Kelong’s fast-paced environment, she had to work with many ambiguities.
She admits that initially, she struggled with the tasks she was given. “Usually, I will pick up invoices and then check for errors. Everything was kind of manual. And when you buy a fish, for example, the price is always different because of the variation in weight,” she elaborates. Because of this, she “couldn’t find the missing values for some account reports” but she quickly resolved this by being unafraid of asking questions. She was also mindful of her boss’s schedule, so she would raise her queries at more appropriate times.
Most importantly, she understood that no task was beyond or beneath her – whether it was proofreading invoices before sending them to a colleague, following up with a client for payment, or tabulating the month’s expenses for the Statement of Account. “I think it’s completing all these small tasks that built trust between myself and my boss.” With newfound confidence in her abilities, she began providing analyses on how the company could improve on their revenue and expenses.
Enif’s experience was wholly different from Hui Qing’s, since he was running his business without a team. For him, the greatest challenge was balancing work and studies – he was enrolled in Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s International Trade & Business course then. But his conviction in his business led him to develop impeccable time management and resourcefulness.
He would wake up at the crack of dawn to get to school on time for his lessons. After which, he would have a half-an-hour lunch and travel to Far East Plaza. Then, he would clean the shop, create social media content, and attend to customers. Around 7.30pm, he would start unpacking and sorting through his deliveries – all 40kg of second-hand clothes. At the end of the day, he would rush for the last train home.
Despite his long days, he constantly saw opportunities to improve his business. “I would literally learn something in school during my lessons, then go to my store and try it out the same day,” he shares. He also leaned on his friends for support. “One of my close friends was always helping me sort through the clothes deliveries when I wasn’t able to be there,” Enif adds.
Having the heart to make an impact
With growing confidence and strengthened relationships, Hui Qing and Enif even got to the point where they were able to make social impacts with inventive solutions.
Noticing high rates of retrenchment post-COVID and remembering how important a fair salary is for workers, Hui Qing took the initiative to ensure that Ah Hua Kelong’s employees were being fairly paid. She did that by reaching out to her boss and asking if she could take a look at their employment contract and revise its terms.
With her understanding of the company’s finances and administrative operations, as well as her new skills and legal lessons from school, she delivered a real-world impact for both Ah Hua Kelong and prospective workers by providing the employees competitive salaries and benefits.
Enif, meanwhile made his business venture both environmentally sustainable and affordable. He took a small Ikea box and filled it with clothes that he either wanted to throw or recycle. Coined as the “one for 50 cents, five for $1 pile”, the clothes in this box were given a second – or third – lease of life and the initiative coincidentally added a communal dimension to Cappo’s Garage. “A lot of people were really happy and excited to dig through the pile to see what they can find,” he shares. “Sometimes I’ll put a really good find in there, like a nice hat, or something more valuable.”
This box also attracted an entirely new demographic of customers – foreign domestic workers looking for cute clothes on a budget. “There was this lady who would always come by with a whole trolley. She became a regular,” Enif recalls.
While Hui Qing and Enif have taken very different paths, they share in common 21st century competencies that have and will help them succeed: resourcefulness, self-management and critical thinking.
Hui Qing continues to work part-time at Ah Hua Kelong while studying at SIT. She now dreams of being a leader of a team – if she is not already one, as she supports other interns at Ah Hua Kelong and steps up in group projects in school.
While Enif has had to close Cappo’s Garage to fulfil his National Service obligations and eventually pursue his undergraduate studies at NUS, his time as Cappo’s captain has made him fully confident that 21st Century Competencies are what can make anyone successful today. “Every business needs these skills,” he concludes.
