A study conducted by one of the
biggest agencies, Job.com, founded that lack of communication skills in both
speaking and writing has caused the main reasons for the failure of graduates
in seeking jobs.
An English lecturer of University
Utara Malaysia’s school of cognitive science and education, M.Puveneswary who
taught English at the University for about 11 years said, there was a gap
between English at the workplace and academic environments.
In her PhD thesis entitled “A
Comparative Study Of The Criteria Employed By Academic And Workplace
Professionals In Evaluating Business Correspondence“, Puveneswary finding
showed that ESL teachers were very concerned about gauging how students had
learnt on the subjects taught, where as employers seem to focus on the “big
picture” using English proficiency as a “move and “strategy aimed at achieving
their business goals that involve consumers and clients. Based on those two
scenarios Why English is Important in Jobs Requirement?
There are over 300 000 graduates in the country without jobs,
and the numbers looks set to rise as there are over 100, 000 graduates who will
be entering the jobs market this year.
Salina Jaafar, a graduate of University Malaya, one of the country’s top
universities, is one of the unemployed graduates. Studying the Information
Technology and graduates a year ago but still can’t land a job was a painful realization
for her that the day when a scroll was a passport to employment may be over.
“I’ve gone for more interviews than
I can remember, but in each case, I was turned down either because I didn’t
have the specific skills they were looking for or because I didn’t have any
experience.” She says “The four years I spent in university studying IT has
come to nothing” she laments. She is the only one complaining.
It was an unbelievable situation
where a country that attracts a thousands of foreign workers can have such a high numbers of its
educated unemployed. The Executive director of Malaysian Employers Federations,
Shamsuddin Bardan said, “Some of them will not be able to find jobs,
so the figure will significantly”
“Graduates unemployment is worrying
trend because the number have been increasing in the past several years,” said
the Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Mohd Salleh Mohd Yasin. From the past three
years, the tracking of employment rate of the university’s graduates has been
done. A questionnaire distributed at the convocation ceremony, held six month
after final examinations for last year’s graduating batch of 4,450 students was
especially troubling 38 percent of them had been unable to find work. “It was
the highest unemployment rate we ever recorded”’ says Salleh
Why is this happening?
Some take it easy by blaming the
troubled economy. But the economy graph were not that worst to be blame, since
the last time unemployment caused by the economy were reported in the mid of
1980s.
Shamsuddin explained it more that
changing economy anchored in the service sector. Being reliant on services means, employers require people who not only have
knowledge but who possess the “soft skills” as well as people who can
communicate effectively, analyse and solve problems efficiently.
The employability of the average
Malaysian graduate is becoming more dependent on a mastery of these soft
skills. The growing number of unemployed, he says, is mainly because many arrive in the job
market poorly equipped with the skills required
by a changing economy.
Out of 12 criteria given by 115
employers surveyed by the National Economic Action Council on the study of
unemployment the 3 top were soft skills : good communications, being
presentable as well as having a reasonable
grasp of general knowledge. Where else the Academic performance was on the
eighth.
Suresh Thiru , the Vice President
of operations at online recruitment company Jobstreet.com
which has 800,000 registered job seekers, says that many graduates fails to
secure a good job because of their lack in English; whish is looked in by the
employers as a potential hires.
An increasing number of
under-graduates in the public and private institutions, from the total number
of 500 000 to 700 00 this year, would be getting worse, regardless how well the
economy performs. It is painfully obvious among public university graduates.
Marie Lam, a country manager of
employment agency Adecco Group Malaysia says that “A large number of the
graduates of public universities fail to make good employee material according
to our client.” Lam added that they generally find it is hard to communicate,
have poor computer skills and are unable to interact with the colleagues and
people from the other races, fail to display team spirit and face difficulties
in adapting the job market.
It is easy to blame the
universities for this, but ultimately they are dealing with the country’s
schools. “ The students reflect the quality of our school education system, so
if there is any weakness , that is the first area we should look at,” says
Shamsuddin. “I am not belittling our straight-As students, but the question is,
are they equally strong in their soft skills?” he add.
So, we can conclude that even
though you are in the top of class, or having a string of degrees, the jobs and
success would not be yours, if you can’t master your soft skills; the
communications skills, self-confidence and the ability of working
independently. With those skills, you would have nothing to be worried of.
–afiq@NieStar.com.my
No comments:
Post a Comment