The Journey of 23 Years Beginning with a Single Step

She may have worked in the company for 23 years, but no two days are the same. Chew Siew Mee, Managing Director of JobStreet Singapore, has been with JobStreet since 1999, growing alongside the company and spearheading many of the major projects within the company. Today, Siew Mee is not only the key person driving growth of the organisation, but she is also the pride of all women and working mothers.

Starting with the First Step

Back in 1999, when Siew Mee started her career in JobStreet, she took on the position of a Key Account Manager and her role as a Key Account Manager was what set the foundation for the rest of her career path. Her duties involved field sales and customer interface, which gave her the most frontline exposure. “I found it to be my most pivotal role, and it made my subsequent journey meaningful,” Siew Mee says. She regarded customer and market understanding as vital, which has helped her in every role that she has done up to today.

In her time as a Key Account Manager, Siew Mee was able to have meaningful conversations with customers and gain exposure to the market. Listening to and understanding customer needs helped her imagine how the customers would take to a product, what they would say, and how they would respond. By honing her visualisation and ability to anticipate potential challenges,  she could think of countermeasures to these challenges and resolve them as they come up.

As Siew Mee continued in her career with JobStreet, she found her roles and duties gradually expanding. She went from a Key Account Manager to managing a small team to managing a larger team comprising of key accounts and telesales. Later, she was promoted to Head of Sales, supervising the sales team and customer service teams before she stepped into the role of a Country Sales Manager supervising both the JobStreet and JobsDB brands when they merged under SEEK in 2014.

The Power of the “Yes, I Can Do It” Mindset

Prior to JobStreet and JobsDB merging under SEEK, Siew Mee admits that she had never done something like the merger before. The company needed to put forward a country-level plan, which was beyond Siew Mee’s experience and job scope then. However, rather than seeing it as a struggle or a burden, Siew Mee’s first thought was that it was an amazing opportunity granted to her because the company trusted her to lead them. She saw it as something important for the company and felt fortunate to be able to lead the journey going forward.

When asked why she still took on the responsibility of overseeing such a major project, Siew Mee says, “This is my advice: don’t be too calculative. If you always think in terms of ‘this is part of my job scope or this is not part of my job scope,’ you won’t be able to learn.” She encourages everyone to have a different perspective when faced with a task that seems daunting. By seeing the upsides and not the downsides of a challenge before you, this leads to more opportunities in life and more opportunities for growth.

All you have to do is put a little extra effort into learning, Siew Mee says. By reprioritising, you can see through a new lens and pick up a new skillset. This way, you can eventually take on things that you initially thought were beyond you. Eventually, Siew Mee says, that you will start to believe, “Actually, I can do it!” Therefore, rather than worrying too much or placing expectations on yourself, Siew Mee encourages maintaining a positive and open mindset.

Support at Home to Excel at Work

To excel at work, Siew Mee has the backing of a supportive family. When she has tight projects to see through, she knows that she is fully supported by her husband who will care for the family needs and the children while she directs her full attention to work. She also has clear communication with her son, explaining to him that she needs the space to work, which he understands.

“Mutual understanding is important,” Siew Mee explains, “such as knowing what kind of support your partner needs.” She is grateful to have an accommodating and flexible family and, in turn, adjusts to her husband when he has responsibilities of his own to fulfil. Family bonding events such as vacation times are discussed in advance to accommodate everyone’s responsibilities such as her husband’s and her work, as well as her son’s school.

This is what society should seek to achieve, Siew Mee says, a system built on mutual support and understanding. For more women to flourish at work, this not only has to be within the family but also extended to society, driven by companies.

Nurturing Diversity in the Workplace

According to JobStreet’s statistics, the ratio of female to male employees still remains small at the board level. Only 10% to 20% of people in higher positions are female, which is something that has to change. Despite the effort that has been put in over the last few years, stereotypes still exist in the system. Most people still think that women primarily do caregiving work and are unsuitable for holding managerial or higher positions in a company.

Regarding this matter, Siew Mee says that change must first happen from the individual. Women must have the courage to take on roles that may seem beyond them. Siew Mee observes that women have a lot of self-constraints, placed upon them by both society and themselves. They are too sceptical about work, having doubts and negative thoughts that prevents them from moving forward. “Start by applying to the role. If you think you can do it, just go for it. You lead the journey. Think about what kind of image do you want to portray to the organisation. Have courage and rise to the occasion,” Siew Mee tells women who are hesitating to move forward.

However, it takes two hands to clap. While women should maintain a positive mindset in taking on the challenges before them, society, employers, and employees need to improve in supporting women in their growth.

In Siew Mee’s opinion, the most effective ecosystem is a balance of men and women. Each one comes with different strengths, personalities, and characters. In general, diverse views are vital in a workplace and in society—and gender is just a part of this.

On a macro level, Singapore is a candidate-short place, with a talent crunch occurring in the job market at this moment. Companies need to be agile and flexible, and one of the ways they can achieve this is by adapting and turning to new candidate pools. Siew Mee says that companies can tap upon back-to-work women who have taken a career break, provide them with training and let them adjust to the new world. Job sharing and part-time work are all good options for back-to-work mothers who require specific hours to balance both caregiving and work. By utilising diverse ways of managing challenges, both companies and candidates can win together.

Begin with the Right Mindset

Siew Mee’s advice to women who are struggling is to begin with the right frame of thinking, mindset, and attitude. She emphasises that you must have the confidence and daring to lead change, take up the challenge, and be flexible in a job.

This is exactly the kind of attitude Siew Mee maintained during her 23 years with JobStreet and even before that. She regards passion and self-learning as some of her greatest strengths and tools. Her passion for work is stoked by being given the opportunity to try new things that are both exciting and challenging. She enjoys putting in the effort to make sure things run smoothly and once she has taken up a job, she will see it through to the end.

As for self-learning, Siew Mee sees it in two ways. The first is being able to put the experience she has on the table and deliver what she can because of it, such as drawing upon her experience as a Key Account Manager and using all the lessons she has learnt during that time in all her future work. The second is about being resourceful, looking for experts and going online. “Exposure is one thing while getting information and resources is another thing. At the end of the day, it is about how you synergise everything into applying it,” Siew Mee says. While it can be challenging at first, it can be navigated.

At the end of the day, this is Siew Mee’s stance, which she brings into her work at JobStreet: There is nothing that cannot be resolved—all you have to do is find the right alternative.

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