Find courses that qualify for SkillsFuture Credit and judge whether a course is worth your time.
Wei Ling was changing careers into data analytics and had narrowed the choice to two data analytics courses. The second was cheaper and had better reviews, but Wei Ling chose the first after checking what each course's graduates were doing now.
Most people choose another way. Every few months, a reminder says your SkillsFuture Credit is waiting to be used. You browse the portal, give up, or pick something that sounds interesting, such as a weekend course on design thinking or an introduction to digital marketing. You finish it and get a certificate, and it makes no difference to your career. The credit is only useful if you spend it on a course that moves your career plan forward, which means choosing with that plan in front of you.
SkillsFuture Credit is a government credit that Singaporeans can use to pay for eligible skills courses. The courses are listed on MySkillsFuture, a portal run since 1 July 2026 by the Skills and Workforce Development Agency (SWDA), the agency formed when SkillsFuture Singapore merged with Workforce Singapore. On the portal you can search thousands of courses, see which credit each one is eligible for, and submit a claim.
The credit has two tiers, and they work differently. Every course listed on MySkillsFuture is eligible for the Opening Credit. The Mid-Career credit can only be used for selected courses, and those courses carry a label on their course pages. If a training provider tells you a course is claimable, confirm it on the portal yourself before you pay or sign anything.
The credit amount, the top-ups, the rules that limit some credits to particular kinds of course, and who is eligible have all changed over the years and may change again. This course leaves out amounts and rules on purpose, because a figure that is right today may be wrong by the time you read it, so you need to check the current position yourself.
Log in to MySkillsFuture with Singpass to check your credit balance. Both tiers of SkillsFuture Credit currently have no expiry date, and any balance left from earlier one-off credits has been merged into the Mid-Career credit without an expiry. Then read the current rules on the SkillsFuture website, including whether part of your credit can only be used for certain programmes. If anything is unclear, contact SWDA directly rather than relying on a training provider's summary of the rules.
Course marketing is designed to sell the course. You'll see happy faces, promises of "in-demand skills" and long lists of topics, and none of it shows whether the course will help you get the job you want.
A better test is what the course's graduates are doing now. Some providers publish placement information, and others will tell you if you ask. Ask each provider about these three things:
How many people finished the last few runs of the course What share of them are working in the field the course trains for What kinds of roles they took, and with what kinds of employers
If a provider cannot or will not answer these questions, treat that as information about the course and weigh it in your decision.
You can also check for yourself. Search LinkedIn for the course name or the provider and look at the profiles of people who list it. Note whether they are working in the field the course is meant for, and whether they moved into that field after the course or were already in it before they enrolled.
This is the check Wei Ling ran. Graduates of the first course were mostly working as analysts within a year, while graduates of the second had mostly stayed in their old roles. Lesson 8.3, "Read the fine print before you sign up", adds more checks, such as a conversation with a past participant.
A certificate tells an employer you sat through a course, while a finished project shows what you can do. When two courses cover similar ground, choose the one that ends with a project, a portfolio piece or a real piece of work you can show in an interview.
Arjun was moving into instructional design and compared two courses. One ended with a written exam. In the other, each participant designed a short training module for a real organisation and got feedback from a practitioner. Arjun chose the second, because the module could go into a portfolio and onto the CV as a result rather than a qualification.
A course that ends with a project gives you evidence that you can do the work and a story about how you did it. In Lesson 1.3, "Test a direction before you bet on it", a small project was one of the best tests of a direction. Lesson 6.1, "The STAR method for behavioural questions", showed how a concrete piece of work becomes an interview story.
A good course closes one of the top-skill gaps on your market sheet. Go back to the sheet you built in Lesson 2.4, "Build a market sheet for your target role", and note which of the top skills you don't yet have. A course on something interesting that appears in none of the job ads you read may be worth doing for its own sake, but it isn't part of your career plan.
When Wei Ling later reviewed the market sheet, SQL appeared in eighteen of twenty ads and was the biggest gap. Wei Ling searched MySkillsFuture for SQL courses aimed at analysts, ignored general introductions to data science, and compared the three that ended with a project.
You can work in the same order. Start with the gaps on your market sheet. Search MySkillsFuture for courses that close one of them and are aimed at your target role, skipping the general introductions. Ask providers how many people finished, what share are working in the field, and which roles and employers they joined. Check graduates on LinkedIn. Prefer courses that end with a project, portfolio piece or real piece of work. Then shortlist and compare, and confirm on the portal that each course is claimable before you pay or sign anything.
For the activity, search MySkillsFuture for courses in your target direction, shortlist three, and note the project or portfolio piece each one produces.
On MySkillsFuture, shortlist three courses for your target direction. Next to each, write the project or portfolio piece it produces.
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