News of this scheme (subscription required) had been making its way over the grapevine, but I never expected it to appear in the national media:

Recruit A*Star scholar for $500

Agency offers incentive to get its scholarship holders to rope in other bright sparks
By Goh Chin Lian

BANKS do it to recruit employees. Insurers do it to get more clients. Now, the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) is doing it to get more bright sparks for its PhD scholarships.

The government agency is offering its scholarship holders $500 for every fellow student or colleague that they refer for - and who subsequently gets - a scholarship. An A*Star spokesman told The Straits Times: ‘This is part of our efforts to reach out to a wider pool of talent, both local and foreign, studying at universities worldwide. This will ensure our scientific talent base continues to be diverse, international and world-class.’

The referral scheme is also more targeted than advertisements in attracting highly talented people in biomedical sciences, and science and engineering, the spokesman added.

A*Star declined to disclose how many typically apply for its scholarships or the number of scholarship holders, as well as their nationalities.

But previous press statements indicate that it has more than 800 scholarship holders pursuing or who have completed bachelor and PhD studies.

The agency, which started the referral scheme last month, got the idea from the corporate world, the spokesman said.

A common practice in business, companies would offer a few thousand dollars for successful referrals of employees, particularly middle management.

Mr Mark Ellwood, managing director of recruitment consultancy Robert Walters Singapore, said how well the incentives work would depend on the way it is marketed internally and the amount.

One plus point is that employees who make referrals would speak well of the organisation. ‘It’s branding. They’ll also know these people fairly well and would have worked with them. It’s a good internal reference check on the individual,’ he said.

Associate Professor Jochen Wirtz, from the National University of Singapore’s Business School, noted that a scholarship holder may not make a referral for the money if he was worried his good intentions may be doubted.

He suggested rewarding both the scholarship holder and the successful applicant, or showing appreciation to the scholarship holder in another way, like a dinner with the agency’s CEO.

‘Money is a bit colder and transactional,’ he said.

Prof Wirtz reckoned that those who believed that being at A*Star would be the best thing for their friends would make the referrals without the incentive.

An A*Star scholarship holder, who spoke on condition of anonymity, agreed.

‘I will tell people there is such an opportunity even without an incentive, if I feel it suits that person well,’ said the student who is pursuing a PhD in engineering in an overseas university.

Several public-sector organisations interviewed said they had no plans to follow in A*Star’s footsteps.

The Public Service Commission said it does not see the need for such a scheme. Its secretariat’s director, Mr Yeo Whee Jim, said potential scholars are identified through talks and tea sessions with small groups of students.

Similarly, an Economic Development Board (EDB) spokesman said: ‘We have never had such a scheme.’

Noting how popular its scholarships are, he said the EDB received about 1,900 applications this year, the highest ever. Only 28 were successful.

Note PSC and EDB taking digs at A*Star for even ‘needing’ such a scheme to recruit people. Are A*Star scholars so, um, unforthcoming about their organisation that they need a monetary incentive to encourage their friends to join them? Is it necessarily a ‘plus point’ that those who make referrals will speak well of the organisation? Think about it. There is a need for such a scheme only if current employees of the organisation are not making enough referrals of their own accord, or not speaking well of the organisation of their own accord. Is it then a good thing that monetary incentives will induce them to speak well of the organisation more then they would otherwise? Would you, as a prospective scholarship applicant, put much stock in their praises of the organisation, now that you know they could be monetarily compensated for it? Who do you trust more, your friend whom you know genuinely enjoys his work and has always spoken well of his employers of his own accord, or the recruiter who gets paid to recruit people?

Note how Mark Ellwood’s answers are basically irrelevant to A*Star’s scheme. Current scholarship holders provide no ‘internal reference check’ of any sort on the individuals they recommend, because given that the vast majority of current scholarship holders have yet to complete their PhD, their judgments of scientific capability in their friends provide little information. It is also likely that they will refer people who are simply their friends or relatives, not people they have worked with. Neither is the referral scheme good for branding — a large part of the appeal of a scholarship is the prestige it entails, and the fact that the organisation has to pay its own people to recommend its scholarships to others lowers its prestige — it suggests that there is insufficient demand for the scholarships.

Finally, there is also the high risk of abuse of the scheme. Suppose that I know someone who already intends to apply for the scholarship. I can then make a deal with him to split the $500 I will get if he succeeds in getting the scholarship.

For these reasons, it seemed to me an astoundingly bad idea even by A*Star’s standards, and it would have been an even worse idea if they’d allowed it to be publicised, which is why I didn’t think the ST would be allowed to report on it. But they did, and now the secret’s out. Any existent scholars of A*Star who are saying good things about A*Star to you might eventually be paid for it. Yeah, that would totally erase any doubts I’d been harbouring about signing on the dotted line.