Donald Trump is a mismatch

How could Donald Trump be the President of the USA, the most powerful office in the world when he does not have the training, qualifications and experience to be one?  I am saying this by using Singapore’s perspective of what is right or good, of what would make a person qualified for a job.  This may be the reason why the US is failing, with poorly trained presidents elected one after another while Singapore is a glowing example of a successful state. The trick, our PMs are well trained. Chok Tong was trained by LKY for at least 10 years. Hsien was trained by LKY and Chok Tong for more than 10 years.  Obama, Bush and now Trump have had zero training to be the President.

Trump may be over qualified if we apply the Singapore’s EP criteria on him. He is rich, super rich, definitely has experience running a more than S$500m company. But if we apply the job market criteria on him like we applied the same criteria on our jobless PMETs, Trump just did not have the experience or right fit to do the job. A mismatch, no training and experience to do the job of a president.

Oops, our EP criteria assumed that one that has run a S$500m company is good enough to run a little island like Singapore. If the criteria are extrapolated to a huge country like the US, maybe it would demand a US$5b company. But of course Trump would still qualify. Let me clarify a bit of confusion here.

There is a difference in looking at the criteria and qualifications for a candidate’s suitability for a job in the market and that for the office of the Presidency. The criteria for the EP may be stringent, but its main factor is about managing money. The criteria for a job could be more complicated though not about money. That is the reason why so many of our PMETs are mismatched in the job market. Trump too may be a mismatch in the job market if he applies for jobs that are lower than his current job as CEO or Chairman of his business empire. He would definitely be a mismatch for a smaller managerial job and would need retraining to fit him into the job. Definitely needs training if he wants to be a taxi driver or security guard.

What about job training to fit a person into a job? Many fresh graduates would not fit into any jobs offered as they don’t have any working experience to fall back on. All will be mismatched as the universities did not train them for any specific jobs unless they took professional courses. The organization must be prepared to train them on the job, and that was what they were doing before, like the civil services and also the private companies.  The more I try to reason this mismatch thing, the more confused I become.  Come to think of it, many people are mismatched in their jobs but are doing quite well. Some exceedingly well and earning millions in their jobs, even becoming CEOs and Chairmans.

Maybe this mismatched Trump would do a good job or a better job than Obama.

What do you think?