TalentCorp: Varsities should look at job list

KUALA LUMPUR: To reduce mismatch of skills required for industries, universities should look at the Critical Occupations List and top associated skills to enhance employability, says Talent Corporation Malaysia Bhd (TalentCorp).

TalentCorp industry partnerships manager Noor Asmaliza Romlee said there were 178,000 diploma and degree graduates entering the workforce annually but only half were employed yet there were 59 critical jobs on the list for 2018 and 2019.

“There is a mismatch between what the industry wants and what the academia is producing.

“The universities need to look at the list to ensure employability and revise their curriculum, ” said Noor Azmaliza, one of three panellists at the Malaysia’s Future Workforce and Graduate Employability discussion yesterday.

The discussion was held in conjunction with the British Council Study UK Fair.

The Critical Occupations List is collated yearly by the Critical Skills Monitoring Committee, led by TalentCorp and the Institute of Labour Market Information and Analysis under the Human Resources Ministry. The list was first published in December 2015.

Noor Asmaliza said universities might need to merge some of the subjects to make them multidisciplinary.

“For instance, to be trained in cyber security work, one needs to be trained not just in computer science but also forensic skills, ” she added.

By ensuring employability, the country would be able to reduce its reliance on foreign expertise to fill in the jobs, she noted.

She said mismatch of jobs also occurred when graduates kept applying for certain jobs and not the jobs that were in demand.

Khazanah Research Institute’s School-to-Work Transition Survey 2018 found that the top two reasons for fresh graduate unemployment were skills mismatch and job search and recruitment mismatch.

According to the survey, employers were also looking for soft skills, besides the hard skills, said Noor Asmaliza.

Meanwhile, the panellists also urged students and graduates to look beyond traditional jobs.

Citibank Malaysia country human resources officer Nisha Padbidri said students and job seekers need to understand key influences such as changing demographics, a growing ageing population and the technological demands, and match them according to their personalities and talents.

She said employers were also looking for people with creativity who were able to “connect the dots” and come up with solutions, have emotional intelligence, the ability to collaborate and bring a team together, analyse data and make good judgements, are resilient and able to pick oneself up after a failure.

University Academy 92 international student recruitment manager Rachel Tod said in recent years, universities have added new skills training to courses to prepare graduates for the job market.