Why You Should Stop Hiring Based on Years of Experience

Ask most hiring managers in Singapore what they want and the answer arrives as a number: five years of experience, eight years, ten. It feels like a safe filter. The trouble is that years of experience measure how long someone has been employed, not how well they can do the job. This article explains why you should stop hiring based on years of experience, what to assess instead, and how to make the shift without falling foul of the Fair Consideration Framework or the tripartite guidelines that govern fair recruitment here.

Who this applies to

The shift to capability-based hiring matters most to:

• SMEs and start-ups competing against larger employers, where a rigid experience bar shrinks an already small pool.
• Employers who sponsor foreign talent. Under the Fair Consideration Framework, MOM expects roles to be advertised on MyCareersFuture and local candidates fairly considered before an Employment Pass application is filed.
• Companies scored under the COMPASS framework, where workforce diversity and local employment share carry points, so who you shortlist has downstream pass consequences.
• Hiring managers filling roles in fields that barely existed five years ago, where demanding a decade of experience is simply not possible.

It applies less rigidly to regulated roles, where statutory or licensing requirements specify minimum practice periods. The argument here is about the years figure you invented for a job advertisement, not the one a regulator imposed.

Key rules and requirements in Singapore

There is no single Singapore law that says “you may not ask for five years of experience”. What exists instead is a framework of fair employment obligations that an experience-first approach can quietly breach.

The Workplace Fairness Act, passed in Parliament in January 2025, will make discrimination on protected characteristics including age unlawful, moving Singapore from guidance to enforceable statute when it comes into force. Alongside it, the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices remain the operating standard: recruit on merit, use selection criteria relevant to the job, and avoid criteria that screen out candidates for reasons unrelated to performance.

Years of experience is the classic criterion that looks neutral and is not. A requirement of “12 to 15 years” is, in practice, an age band, and “no more than 3 years” is the same thing pointed the other way. TAFEP has consistently flagged advertisements that use experience ranges as age proxies, and employers found to have discriminatory practices can have their work pass privileges curtailed by MOM.

Three further points to hold onto:

• Roles requiring an Employment Pass must generally be advertised on MyCareersFuture for at least 14 days. An inflated experience bar makes that advertisement less genuine and harder to defend if MOM queries it.
• The Employment Act sets minimum standards regardless of seniority. Experience does not change your obligations on salary payment, leave or notice.
• Employment agencies assisting with recruitment are licensed under the Employment Agencies Act and must uphold the same fair consideration standards on a client’s behalf.

Step-by-step process

Replacing a years figure with something better takes a little discipline at the front end.

Step 1: Write down what the person will actually do in the first year. Not the job family, the work. “Close the monthly management accounts within eight working days” is a task. “Finance experience” is not.

Step 2: Convert each task into an observable capability. For the example above: can reconcile intercompany balances, understands SFRS presentation, has handled a GST return. These are things you can test.

Step 3: Separate must-haves from nice-to-haves, honestly. Most job descriptions list twelve requirements when four are genuinely load-bearing, and every extra item narrows the pool in ways you did not intend.

Step 4: Rewrite the advertisement in capability language. Instead of “5+ years in digital marketing”, write “has run paid acquisition campaigns with a monthly budget above SGD 20,000 and can explain the attribution model used”. A candidate with three years and the right exposure now qualifies. So does a candidate with fifteen.

Step 5: Build a work sample. A short, time-boxed exercise that mirrors the real job predicts performance far better than a conversation about a CV. Keep it under two hours out of respect for the candidate’s time.

Step 6: Structure the interview and score before you discuss. Same questions, same order, same rubric for every candidate, with interviewers recording independent scores before the debrief so the most senior voice in the room does not anchor everyone else.

Step 7: Keep the paper trail. Job description, advertisement, shortlist rationale, interview scores. If you sponsor work passes, this file is what turns “we considered locals fairly” from an assertion into evidence.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Swapping the years bar for a school bar. Replacing “10 years’ experience” with “graduate of a top-tier university” trades one lazy proxy for another.
• Using experience ranges. “3 to 5 years” reads to a regulator very much like an age filter. State the capability and let candidates self-select.
• Testing for the wrong thing. A work sample that measures presentation polish when the job requires analytical accuracy will select confidently for the wrong person.
• Letting the ATS keyword filter do the sifting. Automated screening on years of experience reintroduces the bias you removed from the advertisement.
• Forgetting the pass implications. If the successful candidate is a foreign national, the role still has to clear qualifying salary and COMPASS. Assess this early rather than after you have made an offer.

Practical examples

A logistics SME hiring an operations executive. The original advertisement asked for five years in freight forwarding and drew a thin response. Rewritten around three capabilities, reading a bill of lading, resolving a customs classification query, and handling an irate customer under time pressure, it drew several times the volume. The eventual hire came from airline ground handling with two years behind them and cleared probation comfortably. The transferable skill was operational triage, not freight-specific tenure.

A professional services firm hiring a senior manager. Here the years figure was doing real work, since client-facing responsibility and review sign-off genuinely accumulate over time. The firm kept the seniority expectation but replaced the number with the evidence it wanted: has signed off on statutory accounts, has managed a team of at least four, has handled a client escalation without partner involvement. Several candidates who would have been screened out on years alone demonstrated all three.

A start-up sponsoring an Employment Pass. A capability-based advertisement on MyCareersFuture produced a strong local shortlist, and the foreign hire was made only after two local candidates were interviewed and scored. When the EP application was filed, the firm had documentation showing genuine local consideration.

How Singapore Employment Agency can help

Singapore Employment Agency works with employers across the whole recruitment and compliance chain, not just the paperwork at the end. That includes rewriting job descriptions and advertisements so they are effective and defensible, advising on MyCareersFuture advertising and Fair Consideration Framework obligations, and preparing Employment Pass, S Pass and Work Permit applications, renewals and appeals. Where a hiring decision affects quota, levy, COMPASS scoring or CPF contributions, we can model the position before you commit to an offer rather than after.

Requirements may change, so always check the latest guidance from MOM, IRAS or ACRA, or consult a professional adviser.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it illegal to state a minimum number of years of experience in a Singapore job advertisement?

It is not automatically illegal, but it is risky. The Tripartite Guidelines require selection criteria to be relevant to the job, and experience ranges are routinely read as age proxies. With the Workplace Fairness Act, age discrimination moves onto a statutory footing, so expect closer scrutiny of criteria with no clear performance rationale.

Does dropping the experience requirement weaken an Employment Pass application?

No. MOM assesses the candidate against qualifying salary and the COMPASS points system, which looks at salary, qualifications, nationality diversity and local employment share. A well-documented, capability-based selection process strengthens your position, because it evidences genuine fair consideration.

What if my industry genuinely requires long experience?

Then say what the experience produced. Regulated roles with statutory practice periods should state that plainly. For everything else, describing the judgment, exposure or track record you need is more precise than a number, and more persuasive to strong candidates.

How do we assess capability without an expensive testing platform?

A one-hour work sample drawn from a real task you have already completed internally costs nothing but preparation time, and you already know what a good answer looks like. Pair it with a structured interview and a written scoring rubric.

Key takeaways

• Years of experience measure duration, not capability.
• Experience ranges in job advertisements function as age proxies and attract attention under the Tripartite Guidelines and, increasingly, the Workplace Fairness Act.
• Replace the number with observable capabilities, then test them with a short work sample and a structured, scored interview.
• Keep the job description, advertisement, shortlist rationale and interview scores on file as evidence of fair consideration.
• Where a foreign hire is involved, check qualifying salary, COMPASS, quota and levy exposure before making an offer, not after. Regulated roles with statutory practice requirements are a genuine exception; most job advertisements are not.

If you would like to find out more about how Singapore Employment Agency can assist with your work pass and employment compliance requirements, please get in touch with the team at [email protected].

Yours sincerely,
The editorial team at Singapore Employment Agency

Disclaimer: This does not constitute legal advice. If you require legal advice, please contact a lawyer.