Are Employers Hiring Again?

 

Fresh graduates from local public and private universities may now expect brighter job prospects this year. A total of 196 organisations polled by Talentbank, a recruitment and market research company found that 73.41% of respondents intend to hire fresh graduates from private and public universities in Malaysia while 21.97% were unsure. The remaining 4.62% were disinclined to hire this year.

The recruitment, market research, education and employer branding company’s survey also found that about 75% of respondents were optimistic they would be hiring fresh graduates from Malaysia’s public and private universities next year. And this no April fool's joke!

Talentbank chief executive officer Ben Ho said the volatile and uncertain period that resulted from the Covid-19 pandemic had caused many companies to cut operating costs by reducing manpower in order to get past the crisis.

"We asked employers if they placed a greater emphasis on attitude or academic results when hiring fresh graduates and the responses came as no surprise. A majority of 91.91 per cent of the respondents chose a good attitude over academic results while the remaining 8.09 per cent stressed on academic results over good attitude.”

Other top 10 most important recruitment metrics that leading employers used when hiring fresh university graduates were: Career readiness, extra-curricular activities, university reputation, recruitment processes, Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA), salary range, time to hire, cost to course applications, employee retention and students' international exposure.

The 2020 LinkedIn Emerging Jobs Malaysia report shows that employers are increasingly expecting the talents they hire be savvy with digital tools to augment their non-digital skills, be it in finance, supply chains, journalism, customer experience or manufacturing.

The report also revealed that computing and information technology graduates could look forward to jobs in their field. Others include accounting, business management, marketing, human resource management, mechanical, electronics and electrical engineering, mass communications, banking and economics.

Looking at the above, it looks like those who do STEM may have no future. The Government prides itself on STEM but the market and employers are on a different planet. If STEM is to be promoted and the country is to progress on AI, digitalisation, nano technology or automated vehicles and EVs then the demand and price for such people will be superior to the more traditional streams mentioned. It needs a whole set of eco system to meet future needs. But right now, that is not happening. And that should be the concern of people in power! Beyond that, new graduates need to be adaptable to future work conditions and requirements.

 

Reference:

1.     Rebecca Rajaendram, We’re on the right track, 14 Mar 2021, The Star

2.     2020 LinkedIn Emerging Jobs Malaysia

3.     Vital for workers to develop high-order thinking, digital skills, 4 Jan 2021, New Straits Times