The Adrian Tan Show

In 2005, a client gave me a job brief with three lines on it: Chinese. Male. Below 35. I filled it without asking a single question.

I ran a recruitment firm for about ten years. In this video, I go through why hiring managers in Singapore still filter out 50-somethings (habit, money and fear), the traps retrenched workers fall into, and the one rule that shows what the system thinks a 52-year-old is worth. Then I share what I think would actually fix it.

Tell me in the comments: should Singapore fund paid trial hires for retrenched 50-somethings? Yes or no, and why.

If you're over 50 and job hunting, tell me the coded line you keep seeing in job ads. Some might end up in a follow-up video.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Intro

1:01 The news in 60 seconds

2:30 Why we're ageist (habit, money, fear)

6:37 The traps, and how to get around them

10:08 Is it just us?

10:59 The fix

14:24 Two people

The haze is back, and Singapore is once again reaching for N95s, shelter rooms and PSI updates.But after nearly three decades of the same headlines, why does it keep happening? I look at the fires, peatland, palm oil, the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act. And publicly, no company has paid a fine under it.This is not about blaming Indonesia. It is about why a problem everyone understands still proves so hard to solve, and who bears the cost while we wait for clear skies.Would you pay more for genuinely haze-free products? Tell me in the comments.Timestamps:00:00 Haze Hits Unhealthy01:06 Singapore Response Measures02:41 Why Haze Happens04:28 El Niño and Timing05:06 Timeline And New Law05:55 Why The Act Hasn't Worked06:56 Has Anyone Fixed Smoke08:26 Why Indonesia Struggles09:31 Help Politics And Japan11:10 Peat Restoration Progress12:17 Consumer Pressure Levers13:59 Worker Safety In Haze15:20 Who Can Escape Haze16:43 What Would Change Next🤝 CONNECT WITH ME🌐 Website: https://adriantan.com.sg💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriantanck/📸 Instagram: @tanadrian18🎵 TikTok: @tanadrian18

GovTech just launched FirstDate, a dating app only for public officers aged 21 to 35. I joked about it on LinkedIn. Then I found out it's basically been done before, in 1984.

In this video, I look at FirstDate the way a recruiter would: every scheme, every agency, every campaign the Singapore government has tried to get us married. What it did, how it ended, and whether this one is any different.

As an ex-headhunter of 10 years, my verdict: FirstDate is a great sourcing tool. But Singapore's marriage problem was never at sourcing. It's at the offer.

⏱ CHAPTERS

0:00 The press release they were too shy to send

2:53 What FirstDate actually is

6:01 42 years of government cupid

6:12 Era 1: The U-turn (1966–1987)

7:51 Era 2: The matchmaker state (1984–2009)

9:23 Era 3: The chequebook (2001–2023)

10:54 Era 4: The reset (2026)

11:42 Why the government keeps doing this

13:44 Will this time be different?

17:19 My verdict

20:22 Closing

💬 Single? Would you sign up for FirstDate? Married? How did you actually meet? Tell me in the comments. I read all of them.

🤝 CONNECT WITH ME

🌐 Website: https://adriantan.com.sg

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriantanck/

📸 Instagram: @tanadrian18

🎵 TikTok: @tanadrian18

📚 SOURCES

- FirstDate (GovTech pilot): https://firstdate.sandbox.gov.sg/

- Mothership (4 Oct 2026): Govt staff from the same agency won't be matched on FirstDate

- Mothership (3 May 2026): Govt explored a dating site for singles aged 35 and below

- CNBC (4 Oct 2026): Singapore debuts a state-backed dating app for young government workers

- The Straits Times via The Star (10 Jul 2026): Marriages in Singapore fall further in 2025

- Malay Mail (28 Jul 2026): Tokyo govt dating app leads to 265 marriages

- Singstat, Population Trends 2026

The "Office of Leadership Supply" press release at the start is satire. It is not a real government office or statement.

#Singapore #FirstDate #GovTech #BirthRate #Dating

Job search isn't just a full-time job. It's a SALES job, and you only have one product to sell: you.Singapore just saw 4,000+ workers retrenched in a single quarter, the highest since end-2020, and about 8 in 10 were PMETs. Fewer people are back in a job within six months, and many come back at a big pay cut. In sales terms, you closed the deal… but sold at a huge discount.I spent a decade on the buyer side running a recruitment firm, and co-wrote "Everything You Wish to Ask a Headhunter." In this video, I break down the 6-step sales playbook for job seekers:1️⃣ Pick your territory – sell where the money is flowing (hint: AI and everything around it)2️⃣ Prospect for advice, not jobs – and why content brings leads to you3️⃣ Fix your pitch deck – beat the ATS, then win the human4️⃣ Work warm leads – why referrals are a small share of applicants but a big share of hires5️⃣ Manage your pipeline – most jobs are lost in the follow-up6️⃣ Close at the right price – and never stop sellingYou don't need 400 applications. You need ONE employer to say yes.⏱️ Chapters00:00 Job search is a sales job00:30 Retrenchment reality check01:40 Why listen to me02:10 Stop spamming applications02:45 #1 Pick your territory05:00 #2 Prospecting for advice07:15 #3 Fix your resume (pitch deck)08:20 #4 Warm leads & referrals11:00 #5 Manage your pipeline11:45 #6 Close the deal and keep selling🔗 Resources mentionedSingapore layoff tracker: https://layoffsg.comJobscan: https://www.jobscan.co/Teal: https://www.tealhq.com/ApplyLah: https://applylah.com/Happenstance: https://happenstance.ai/Huntr: https://huntr.co/📬 Subscribe to my newsletter "Will That Work?": https://adriantan.com.sg📖 My book "No More Bosses": https://amzn.asia/d/0hrNilbu#JobSearch #Retrenchment #Singapore #CareerAdvice #JobHunting #PMET

When the government announced that every Singaporean child gets almost $70,000 from birth to 17, my first reaction was simple: I have four kids, so that’s $280,000 for my family. Hosay liao.

Then I actually sat down and did the maths properly. I was completely off the mark.

My oldest just missed the new baby gift and child credits by age cutoffs. My two middle kids get a partial run of child credits plus a PSEA top-up. Only my youngest, at 10, gets close to the full package. Add it all up across all four kids, spread over the next seven years, and my real total comes to roughly $63,000. A fraction of the $280,000.

I go through the full breakdown, kid by kid, in the video below, along with a few things I think are worth talking about:

* Why the $70K figure doesn’t hold its value

* What’s conspicuously missing from the package

* How Singapore’s incentives stack up against Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong

* Whether this was ever really a money problem to begin with

* Why I had four kids myself, and one slightly ridiculous idea for how Singapore could make big families genuinely aspirational

Doing this exercise humbled me a bit. I went in expecting to feel shortchanged by the government but I left convinced that the number was never really the point.

Would a bigger cheque actually change your mind about having kids? Or is it the other stuffs that money can’t touch?

Let me know in the comments.

My face is all over the news right now. Here’s why I’m okay with that.

Eight years ago I flew to Nanning, sat through five days of the world’s most elaborate sales pitch, and walked away from what turned out to be a pyramid scheme. I wrote about it once and filed a police report but nobody really followed up.

Then 52 Singaporeans got detained in China over a suspected pyramid scheme, my old article resurfaced, and suddenly my face was in the news.

The question I’ve gotten the most since: how the hell did you not realize it was a scam?

Fair question. So instead of answering it piecemeal in comments, I sat down and answered everything. What actually happened in Nanning. Who I met (a Singaporean of the Year finalist, a former MP). Why I still won’t name them. When it clicked that something was off, and why I put money in anyway even after it did.

I could’ve stayed quiet about all this. A lot of people in my position do, because nobody wants to be known as the guy who almost fell for it. But I don’t think that’s the right instinct. The people running these schemes get to operate in public. I don’t see why the people who got pitched to should have to hide.

Full video’s below

Is AI really replacing jobs? Or is something even more dangerous happening?

Everyone is asking whether AI will take our jobs. I think we’re asking the wrong question.

The real disruption isn’t that experienced professionals are being replaced. It’s that the first step of the career ladder is quietly disappearing.

In this video, I explore:

* Why AI helps junior employees more than senior ones

* Why companies are hiring fewer entry-level workers

* What happens when AI takes over the work people used to learn from

* Why today’s graduates face a very different job market

* The hidden risk businesses are creating for themselves

* What leaders, managers, parents and young professionals should do next

Using research from MIT, Stanford, Harvard and real-world examples (including the ATM revolution, factory electrification, and the Air Canada chatbot case), I explain why the biggest AI problem may not be automation, but the disappearance of apprenticeship.

Whether you’re a CEO, manager, HR professional, student or parent, this is a conversation we need to have before it’s too late.

👇 I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Is your company still hiring junior talent?

Or has the entry door quietly started closing?

Leave a comment below.

If you enjoy thoughtful discussions about AI, work, leadership and the future of careers, consider subscribing. New videos every week.

Timestamps:

00:00 AI Hiring Paradox

00:22 Homework Without Struggle

01:05 ATM Story Misleads

01:55 AI Levels Skills

02:39 Entry Jobs Vanish

03:48 Apprenticeship Gets Cut

04:36 Where Seniors Come From

05:34 Why AI Pilots Fail

06:54 Redesign Workflows

08:08 Trust and Accountability

09:05 Protect the Bottom Rung

Someone is going to get retrenched today — and they have no idea. After 11 years inside recruitment and hundreds of conversations with blindsided professionals, I can tell you retrenchment is almost never actually a surprise. The signals show up weeks or months early. Most people just don't know what they're looking for. This video names all 9 — and the 4 quiet moves to make before you ever need them.

🔎 Track live layoffs in Singapore → https://layoffsg.com

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS

0:00 – Someone gets retrenched today (they don't know yet)

0:17 – Why it feels like a surprise (but almost never is)

1:11 – Two things to understand first

1:16 – Why the people who know aren't allowed to tell you

1:43 – Companies retrench roles, not people

2:22 – The signals are structural, not personal

2:37 – Signal 1: The hiring freeze

3:15 – Signal 2: External consultants arrive

4:01 – Signal 3: Communication becomes careful

4:44 – Signal 4: Your manager's behaviour changes

5:32 – Signal 5: You're asked to document your processes

6:21 – Signal 6: Budget quietly disappears

6:48 – Signal 7: A reorg or "strategic review" of your function

7:23 – Signal 8: New leadership with no history with your team

8:08 – Signal 9: Your scope quietly shrinks

8:54 – The two wrong responses (denial vs. panic)

9:20 – Move 1: Update your resume now

9:34 – Move 2: Activate your network quietly

9:49 – Move 3: Build visibility outside your company

10:08 – Move 4: Know what you're entitled to

10:28 – LayoffSG.com — the layoff tracker I built

10:53 – Final thought

I'm an introvert. Small talk drains me, and walking into a room of strangers is the last thing I want to do — so for years my "networking strategy" was finding the food table and looking busy with my coffee.

And yet people still walk up to me at events (and once, at a night market) already knowing who I am. That's not luck. It's reputation infrastructure — 8 specific moves that put your name into the world before you ever show up in a room, so trust is already built by the time someone reaches out. I used these moves while running my career coaching practice, and

I'm using them again now as I build my fractional career.

In this video, I break down all 8:

00:00 Intro

03:52 Move 1: Write a Book

05:57 Move 2: Speak at Events

07:21 Move 3: Academic Affiliation

08:14 Move 4: Win Awards

09:03 Move 5: Join Industry Bodies

09:57 Move 6: Get Board Positions

11:17 Move 7: Media Bylines

12:24 Move 8: Podcasting

None of this works in 30 days. But if you're moving into fractional work or self-employment, this is the difference between chasing clients and having them come find you.

My former CEO stood in front of the whole team and said: no side hustles. Too distracting. The company needs your full commitment.

He had three board directorships, two committee seats, and multiple rental properties.

He wasn’t lying to be cruel. He was protecting what he’d built — and hoping you wouldn’t notice the gap between what he said and what he did.

I noticed too late. I went all-in on one company for a decade. $5M revenue, 30 staff, everything I had in one place. Then the partners changed, the investors pulled out, and I spent three months not knowing what to do with myself at 9 am on a Monday. Then I drove Grab.

This video is what I learned from that — and what your boss already knows that nobody taught you.

What is covered:

00:00 Side Hustle Hypocrisy

00:27 Leaders Diversify Quietly

01:41 The Loyalty Deal Died

02:18 All In Then Burnout

03:04 Uber And Identity Loss

03:21 Diversify Without Seniority

03:49 Build Assets Under Your Name

04:03 Writing Builds Reputation

04:30 Fractional Work And Niches

05:43 Commitment Versus Concentration

06:06 What Equity Are You Building

06:42 Do As They Do