VIRTUAL TOUR
2019
15 MarUCSI University Bridges the Gap Between Students and Employment
After operating for more than a decade from the Students Affairs office, UCSI University’s Employment and Co-Op Placement (Co-Op) Centre opened its brand new office also located within the campus.
The UCSI’s flagship Co-Op programme has been providing integrated services to all UCSI students to contribute to their international and rewarding career journey since 2004. With its new workplace, the centre will continue to address matters related to job placement, industrial training and advices to empower students with the right mind and skillsets.
The centre’s workplace was officially launched by UCSI Group founder and CEO Dato’ Peter Ng, UCSI University Vice-Chancellor and President Senior Professor Dato’ Dr Khalid Yusoff, and UCSI Consulting Group CEO Raj Kumar.
With this launch, the Centre will now work closer with the industry in providing talents, both students and academic staff, to the industry and from the industry to the university.
It is also UCSI’s affirmation to bridge the gap to claims that universities do not provide the sort of workers that the industry needs; making it an advantage to the industry, students, staff, university, and ultimately to the community and country.
“We are indeed very grateful for the support and commitment of all our industry partners here; for being with us in moving forward this agenda, shaping the future together for the betterment of all,” said Senior Professor Khalid.
“Today, we are going further. Success breeds success. This Employment Centre will provide various means and information to our students seeking employment such as profiling and talent assessment, career consultation and placement, CV and cover letter review, interview tips and techniques, and even grooming advice as well as industry intelligence and surveillance,” he said.
Co-Op has placed students at various companies in Malaysia and across the globe. To date, it has established partnerships with over 4,200 employers.
Through Co-Op, students will have the opportunity to get two or four months of work experience each year depending on their programme throughout their studies. Upon graduation, a UCSI student would have accumulated six to eight months of work experience.
As the central provider of employment support services for UCSI’s undergraduates and graduates, as well as, recent alumni, the Centre offers a faculty-based model of operation to facilitate employers while targeting the best and brightest that the University has to offer.
Besides the launching ceremony, UCSI also hosted a forum titled “Employers Forum: Insights On Talent Requisitions In Current Hiring Market” to discuss issues, pain points, solutions and trends with regards to talent requisition.
Panelists at the forum were Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad HR executive Andrew Peters, Vinda Malaysia Sdn Bhd Southeast Asia HR director Clayton Tan and Averis Sdn Bhd operations lead Dang Cheong Lee. The session was moderated by Raj Kumar, CEO of UCSI Consulting Group.
The forum highlighted many interesting points such as how candidates can have better chances with their resumes if they are honest as employers and employees often have to deal with a mismatch of talent, especially when companies hired staff based on the contents of the resume and the interview.
“The resumes today are written by career centres and vetted through by several people. Applicants are also trained what to say during interviews,” revealed Clayton Tan, the human resource director for Southeast Asia at Vinda Malaysia.
Tan said sometimes candidates would say their hobbies were reading, writing and playing badminton.
“When we ask them what was the last book they read, they are unable to answer because they don’t really read,” he said, adding how the portraying of “one’s best” during interviews would usually backfire as the candidate might not be as curious in the job as he showed to be during the interview or he might not be as competent as he showed himself to be at the interview.
“They are unable to sustain their stated ‘character’ at work. This stresses both sides,” said Tan.
His advice is for graduates to be honest about their interests and talents so that the hiring company is able to place them in the appropriate job areas. He said to hire the right candidates, his company would hire interns to work on projects lasting three-months to a year to gauge if they were suitable for the job.
Another point highlighted was by Dang Cheong Lee, operations lead at Averis Sdn Bhd whose company dealt with plantations, and he found that most young graduates reject offers when the training is provided in certain parts of Indonesia, China, or Brazil as they did not want to go to remote areas to work.
“Local graduates can put up slides but are unable to present well,” he pointed out on their soft skills and that they were still unable to articulate well in public.
Meanwhile, Andrew Peters, human resource executive at Dutch Lady Malaysia, said his company would ask new staff to be involved in role-playing. For instance, staff would be asked to arrange company products in shopping malls or promote products at hospitals. “It is our way of coaching them,” he said.
Congratulations to UCSI University on their efforts to bridge the gap of employment among students!
