Business Graduates' Competencies in the Eyes of Employers: An Exploratory Study in Malaysia (original) (raw)
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There is always a gap between practitioners' perception on business graduate competencies as compared to academicians' perception on the similar topic. Hence, the task to bridge the gap is very necessary in order to equipped business graduates with a more competent set of skills. This study aims to empirically identify the practitioners' perception on important competencies should possessed by Malaysia business graduates. The second objective is to identify the practitioners' perception on important competencies should possessed by Malaysia business graduates. Last objective is to identify if there is a gap exist between both group's perception on important competencies should possessed by Malaysia business graduates. A survey questionnaire was designed and administered to determine the perceptions of employers about the perceived important competencies and hiring preferences. A total of 45 questionnaires were distributed to managers of nine main local commercial banks in Malaysia in the period of six months. The gap between employer needs and graduate competencies were able identified. The findings from this study can be a significant help to the universities in producing competitive business graduates and industries at improving human capital capabilities.
Challenge in graduate employability is to match talent to the job. As for now, employers claimed they are having difficulty in getting the right employee fits their needs. Meanwhile, the new graduates face similar problems as they are struggling to enter the workplace market. As a result is uneven employment opportunity across different industry and sectors. The purpose of this paper is to identify the perception of employers and new business graduates on employability skills that urgently needed by industry, besides to identify if there are any gaps in their perception. Two sets of questionnaires were developed to assess of employability skills; they are applied, interpersonal and 21st-century skills. 299 organizations, 607 managers, and 700 new graduates participate in this study. Meanwhile, SPSS is used to analyze the data and descriptive statistics and ANOVA is usage to answer the objectives of the study. The result shows that the perception of employers and new graduates on the main employability skills urgently required by industry has different. The finding also revealed that there is a slight gap in score mean regard to the urgency of employability skills that required by industry. The study recommended that stakeholder in this area, higher learning institution, employer, and government need to collaborate to make sure employability skill that supply by higher learning institutions through their graduates match with industry needs and job requirements.
International Journal of Asian Social Science, 2019
Employability skills may implicate and reflect the employment opportunity especially among the new graduates. This study aims to compare the performance of employability skills among new business graduates in Malaysia base on stakeholder perceptions; they are the employer, academician and new graduate. Besides, is to identify if there is any significant difference between their opinions. Three sets of questionnaires were established to evaluate employability skills; they are basic, applied, interpersonal and 21st-century skills. The result revealed that stakeholders rated the performance of new graduate high and interpersonal skill is the most performed. The result also revealed that they speak in a different language in which specific skills is the most important than the others. Accordingly, recommendations and limitations highlighted in this study. Contribution/ Originality: This study contributes to the existing literature that provides practical evidence on the role of employers, academicians, and graduates in the employment opportunity. Besides, to offer the stakeholders some clear picture on current employability skills gap that links directly to the performance and sustainability of organization and country as the whole.
International Journal of Management and Enterprise Development, 2007
This paper examines the qualities of fresh graduates in business from the perspectives of employers. Three main research questions are addressed: 1) What are the qualities preferred among fresh business graduates? 2) What ratings do employers give to the qualities of fresh business graduates? 3) Are the employers satisfied with the qualities of fresh business graduates? Data was collected from a questionnaire-based survey done on a sample of 127 human resource managers in Malaysia. The qualities of the fresh graduates include knowledge, skills, abilities, and others (experience, behaviour and attitudes), or KSAOs. Analyses on the mean scores indicate various aspects of KSAOs that employers seek in fresh business graduates. Even though the employers are generally satisfied with the graduates' qualities, the preference-assessment comparison reveals significant gaps in the graduates' skills and abilities. The findings are discussed and interpreted to provide important implications to employers, graduates and educational institutions.
Liceo journal of higher education research, 2020
The relationship between higher education and relevance to industry establishes the utilitarian purpose of the academe. Using a validated researcher made instrument and interview, the study assessed the competencies of the Financial Management and Accountancy graduates from school years 2012-2015 on three competence domains, namely knowledge, skills, and attitude. The descriptive statistics indicate that attitudinal competencies are very strongly acquired; knowledge and skill competencies, strongly acquired; while the financial industry highly requires all three competencies. The gaps point to knowledge and skill competencies that are short of industry expectations. Inference considers the fast-changing dynamics among financial institutions attributing to e-commerce, ASEAN trade conditions, international and national financial regulatory agencies. The study reveals a significant strong positive relationship with skills and attitude on the required and acquired competencies. Howeve...
Employability Skills in Business Management Graduate and Role of Malaysian Vocational College
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2019
Employability skills among graduates are a key requirement for them to get jobs in the labor market. However, not all graduates have the employability skills required by employers. Therefore, this article aims to examine the importance of employability skills that must be mastered by Business Management graduates in vocational colleges (KVs). Human Capital Theory, Self-Concept Theory of Career Development and Skills Relationship Model has been linked to this article. Employability skills that must be mastered by Business Management graduates are the skills of analysis and problem solving, communication, information technology application, leadership and management, teamwork and interpersonal and entrepreneurial. The need for employability skills is a priority for employers as well as technical skills. It is also a key criterion in determining the employability and marketability of graduates in the labor market. This article also recommends that KVs take the initiative to inculcate employability skills among Business Management graduates, so they are more prepared and equipped with the skills required by employers and thus have the opportunity to gain employment in the labor market.
Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, 2020
PurposeManagers claim that fresh graduates are unequipped to meet market demands. The aim of this study is to investigate the perception of employers in retail Islamic banks of Bahrain on newly graduated business students. The Singaporean Model of Employability Skills was implemented, to ascertain the mean ratings of employability skills in terms of their importance and the competency of business graduates.Design/methodology/approachThis deductive research approach initiated with a literature review that identifies research gap and a model that was tested via a self-administration adopted survey by collected data from 220 senior employees at retail Islamic banks of BahrainFindingsThe systematic of convenience sampling technique was used in selecting 161 samples and the researcher received only 85 completed questionnaire forms. Findings initiate that employers appreciated the importance of teamwork, risk management and decision-making skills. Their main recommendation was that employ...
Job Competencies for Malaysian Managers in Higher Education Institution
This paper discusses the development of core competencies required for managerial positions in higher learning institutions. Two sets of questionnaires (free-choice and forced-choice) based on competency profile that comprised 51 statements were used in this survey study. A total of 265 questionnaires were distributed to the respondents identified on the basis of purposive sampling. Analysis of findings from the survey suggested fourteen elements of core competencies identified as crucial and important for high job performance for managers. For the sake of strategic implementation, these list of competencies were clustered under the following headings: Management and Leadership Skills (4 elements); Personal Effectiveness (5 elements); Expertise and Professional Competence (5 elements). This paper also recommends that effective implementation should be followed with skills acquisition that can be in a variety of methods ranging from formal, such as training, workshops, computer-based learning, coaching and mentoring, to the informal. The informal ones can be acquired through daily job performance, experience, peer or superior mentoring. This study concludes that the practice of these competencies must be continuously reinforced in the day-to-day business process and performance management within the organization.
International Journal of Engineering Business Management
This study aims to investigate whether the graduates' core competencies are fairly sufficient to get employed and also aims to understand the impact of these employable skill (ES) on work performance (WP). Toward this, a theoretical framework was developed by considering delivery-related competencies (DRCs), interpersonal competencies (IPCs), and strategic competencies (SCs) as independent variables and ESs and WP as predictable variables. The survey was conducted across private companies in Saudi through a questionnaire that received 235 completed responses. A qualitative approach by conducting few interviews were also considered to gain possible value added comments from the respondents. An exploratory factor analysis) using varimax rotation was conducted to evaluate the impact of competencies on ESs and its further effect on WP. The results demonstrated that, though the DRCs and IPCs have low positive significant effect on the overall ESs, the SCs were not able to significantly predict the recent graduates' ESs. It is also evident that the overall ESs are not significantly predicting the WP. The indirect effect of independent variables on WP through the mediation of ESs were also assessed using AMOS software. The results revealed that ESs have a significant partial mediating effect only between delivery competencies, IPCs, and WP but not with SCs. The findings also provide a deep insight to the national recruiters to consider the competency-based management. The study is limited to understand the fresh graduates' competencies, so the results cannot be generalized to experienced graduates. Further, few important recommendations were also proposed to the higher education establishments to strengthen their efforts and finely groom their future graduates according to the global labor market. The study also sheds numerous directions to potential new graduates for enhancing their present skills and to become competent in the job market.
The Relation of Human Capital and Competitiveness Factor towards Graduate Competencies
International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development
Graduate unemployment issues have been related to unused human resources in the country. Mainly, the unemployment of graduates could adversely impact a high-quality and educated workforce. Hence, to answer the unemployment phenomena of our graduates, the research is motivated to investigate the graduates' competency issues in getting jobs. Based on the literature, graduate competency is viewed as the main factor for employment. To grasp the understanding of graduate competency issues in our country, this research has implemented a preliminary study to develop the scale. The competency construct that is specifically used in this study is to identify the influence of human capital and competitiveness factors that may lead to competency among graduates. A total of 30 respondents were randomly selected to represent the actual 384 sample size of the study. The respondents were Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) graduates working in several services organizations in Malaysia. Our findings for the reliability analysis of the survey items showed strong reliability of Cronbach's alpha values within the ranges of α = .735 and α = .926 for all items. Then, we ran a correlational analysis to understand the relationship between items. The results show that all items were significant at p < .05 with Pearson correlation coefficient analysis. To highlight one of the key findings in our research, technical skills relate highly to graduate competency (r = .564).