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FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND

LANGUAGES

OUMH1103
LEARNING SKILLS FOR OPEN
DISTANCE LEARNERS

NAMA
NO. MATRIKULASI

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WENDY

NO. KAD PENGNEALAN

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Learning Centre

Table of Content

1.0 Introduction
2.0 Important Skills Employers Seeks in Graduates
2.1

Personal Values

2.2

Communication Skills

2.3

Computer/Technical Literacy

2.4

Problem-Solving/Reasoning/Creativity.

2.5

Leadership/Management Skills

3.0

Suggestions

4.0

Summary

5.0

Reference

1.0

Introduction
Education is the most important mean to build a healthy and developed nation for
many countries around the world. Indeed that education is very essential to us as it
inculcates self development in terms of knowledge, skills and also to be a better
individual with high morality.
Knowledge and skills that we gained from schools largely depends on the
curriculum made by the policy makers and stakeholders. As the worlds trend is
changing rapidly, the curriculum in any education system ought to be revised from
time to time to meet the current needs of the country, society and individual. In other
word, we should receive the most up-to-date and modern education as possible in
order to compete with the other countries.
In this paper, discussions were made about the importance of the graduates to
master specific skills that meet the requirement of the employers. In fact, there are
some specific knowledge and skills that the employers seek in the graduates to ensure
that they are qualified for the post offered. There are many job skills that can be
categorized into few groups such as personal value, leadership skills, communication
skills, problem solving skills and computer literacy. Besides, it is also very important
that the graduates should know the skills that they need to master before hand in
order to be competent in any field of employment.
Next, there are some suggestions for the future graduate, government bodies
and educational institutions in Malaysia regarding the skills that graduates need to
equip and master.

2.0

Important Skills Seeks in Graduate


According to many foreign countries, the employers require their employees to
have many skills that might not been stated in the paper. This can be referred to the
communication skill, interpersonal skill, accountability and responsibility. However,
employers need to counter check whether the person is qualified to be hired through
face-to-face interviews. Before the interview session is carried out, the company will
first post the job offer in the newspapers or through the existing employees regarding
the post being offered and venue, date and time where the interview will be

conducted. Also, the basic requirements will be stated in black in white as well as
documents that the interviewees need to prepare upon the interview.
After some researches, skills that most employers seek in graduates are the most
basically the academic qualification, personal values, ICT literacy, communication
skills, leadership skills and problem solving skills.
2.1 Personal Values
According to Hansen & Hansen (2012), the most significant personal
values that employers seek in job seekers are adaptability, flexibility,
dedication or hard-working, good work ethic, tenacity, reliability and
responsibility, self-motivated and independent i.e. ability to work with little or
no supervision.
Adaptability deals with the ability to manage multiple tasks or assignments,
set priorities and capability to adapt to new working environment or changing
conditions with fast pace. Whereas flexibility in terms of long working hours or
over times which is sometimes inevitably in certain job area will get the better
impression from the employers. A flexible person could thrives by effectively
prioritize and juggle multiple concurrent projects.
Most of the time employers are looking forward to meet people with good
working attitude, dedicated in their job area and hard-working with minimal or
no complaint received from them. Of course there are times when employees
would face problems in their work and this is the time to show that they are
having tenacity to endure until the problems solved. It is not easy to overcome
the tense and pressure from work especially for those who have family
commitments.
Apart from the personal values mentioned above, a graduate should carry
the value of reliability and responsibility. Many employers claimed that it is
difficult to get a truly responsible employee whom they can rely on whenever
they needed one nowadays. Punctuality has always been the main
characteristics of a responsible employee. Furthermore, a person who is self-

motivated and independent is another characteristic that most employers give


extra credits. There are some more characteristics that underlie good
personalities such as professional outlook, have confidence, humble, friendly,
and well behaved, and always speak with appropriate voice tone especially in
servicing and openness i.e. to accept any good or bad comments with open
heart.
There are times when the employers choose to hire graduates with good
personalities over the skills, knowledge or experience that they possessed. A
person with good personal values are the most desirable employees that a
company or organization would ever wanted. Due to their well-beings and
appropriateness that meets the requirements of a professional, they usually get
more attention from the employers compared to those who carries less values of
a good worker. Good personality can be trained and mould since young age,
therefore it is wise to inculcate good behaviors in school children during
younger age.
2.2 Communication Skill
Communication skills are the skills most needed skills by the employers
when looking for the potential employees. Communication skills that are
sought by employers include language literacy, perfect listener and influential
speaker. In another word, graduates should be able to communicate in as many
languages as possible for example in Malaysia, graduates should be able to
communicate using at least three languages (i.e. Bahasa Malaysia, English and
Chinese) fluently in terms of listening, speaking and writing in context of
Malaysia. A perfect listener refers to the ability of using active listening skills
without interfere the speakers or having any prejudice towards the speaker or
any topics discussed. Some opinions from Lloyd and Kennedy (1997),
communication skills include presenting ideas clearly and persuasively, write
introductory summaries and wrap-up statements and illustrate ideas in tables or
graph forms. Those who could effectively convey information verbally and in
writing gets high opportunity to be hired. Therefore, any individual with good

language commands would have more advantages compared to those who are
not as good in their language skills.
2.3 Computer/Technical Literacy
In recent society, computer is no longer an unachievable tool like in the
past few decades. There are more and more software and hardware to enhance
the usage of computers in helping people to solve day-to-day routines or
problems. Therefore, computer literacy became one of the compulsory
requirements that the employers seek in graduates. Unable to perform good
computer literacy or at least moderate skills of basic commands using
computer will be washed out by the society in no time.
Almost all jobs now require some basic understanding of computer
hardware and software, especially word processing, spreadsheets, and email.
Computer-literate performers with extensive software proficiency are able to
cover a wide variety of applications. (Hansen & Hansen, 2012). Hence,
computer literacy is one of the skills that no graduates could avoid from
mastering it.
According to Lloyd and Kennedy (1997), graduates who claimed to have
computer skills shows proficiency in word-processing program, spread sheet
program and sending emails using internet. Many job areas required their
employees to at least have basic computer skills such as typing, altering and
printing documents, create slides for presentations, enter database
information, retrieve, download or search for relevant information, plan
projects, preserves (backup important data) and sending out picture files and
text files with ease. Some jobs required more specific skills like
programming, converting audio and video files, webpage building and so
forth. Apart of that, making full use of the ICT tools and internet is one of the
most important skills that employers always seek for. For example,
communication using internet and ICT gadgets are video conferencing and
file sharing through networking. Mastering all these skills will help to beat
out other job candidates.

2.4 Problem-Solving Skills


Problem solving skills refers to the ability to solve problems
independently without offending any grounded rules of ethics. If one can
solve problem without involving excessive money or manpower would
benefit the employers in many ways. There are times when problems occur
and no one to refer to, employees who possess skills in problem solving will
make own judgment and decision creatively, otherwise worsen the situation.
There are steps to be followed in problem solving skills. First, one has to be
observance enough to see the whole picture or situation that company faced.
Next, understanding the problems thoroughly and figure out the possible ways
to solve the problem. Flow charts, cause and effect diagrams brainstorming,
Root Cause Analysis and decision matrix are the tools that can be used in
problem solving. Once the graduates could fully utilize these tools, they are
better problem solvers than the others. Of course there are plenty of ways in
problem solving skills, however it still needs experience to make problem
solving an easy skill to be mastered.
Most of the time, employers love to know that the job candidates are able to
describe how he or she solve problem that occurred. It would be interesting if
the graduates could have the chance to show their ability in problem solving.
2 5 Leadership/Management Skills
Graduates who have leadership and management skills are capable to
relate co-workers, inspire others to participate, and mitigate conflict with coworkers effectively. It is essential to graduates to strengthen their leadership
skills so that they could easily pull the co-workers together and work as a
team. As a leader, he or she will need to have good relationship with the coworkers and subordinates. Hence, cooperation and supports from the
employees is very important to any company to ensure the continuous growth
in terms of profit and development. Therefore, most freshly graduates would

have less working experience filled in their resume. As for those who had at
least two or three years working experience with other companies would
definitely attract the employers attention. However, leadership skills can be
trained by learning through experiences.
Another features for leadership skill is decision making. A leader has
to be able to make decision by choosing the best option by looking at the
various paths open available, identifying the pros and cons and making a
balanced judgment. (Loughborough University, 2012). Future graduates
should know the importance of being a leader and how to be a good leader
who gained respects from the co-workers. As mentioned in the paragraph
above, leadership skills always come in line with working experiences. In
order to stand out from the other competitors during interview, graduates
should make the skills they possess easy-to-see and up-to-date. (Vercillo,
2012).

3.0 Suggestions
In order to reduce the unemployment rate in the country, here are some
suggestions for the future graduates, government bodies and educational institutions to
enhance the current education system by revising the curriculum and courses that has
to be offered to the students ranged from school leavers to universities graduates.
3.1 Suggestions to future graduates
It is always wise to prepare the umbrella before it rains. (Quoted from
Malay proverbs). Future graduates should understand and be alerted all the time
about the current issues in all aspects, especially issues that are relevant to their
own future. Nowadays, students or school leavers hardly can find a job with
great future and highly paid. (Vercillo, 2012). The survey shows that the reasons
behind employers not being able to hire qualified employees include job
candidates are lack of certain skills that are very much needed to perform the
job. Some graduates with excellent results might not mean they are the best

employees because skills that employers look for in a person should be balanced
between academic wise and job skills. Therefore, learn more about job skills
from the newspapers, articles or scholars writing can help the future graduates
to equip themselves before they come out to the society and search for their
dream jobs.
There are many courses offered by local or private institutions such as
universities, adult classes and colleges which provide opportunities or platforms
for the future graduates to learn, to train, to experience and to master the job
skills required by employers.
3.2

Suggestions for government bodies


Government does play an important role in producing capable, responsible and
competent well being to the society. In Malaysia, government worked hand in
hand with the education department in preparing sufficient allocation, facilities,
subsidiaries and set policies for the schools and educational institution to ensure
schools run well and smooth at every education level. Schools and universities
curricular should meet the requirement for employment. In fact, any alteration of
education system will affect the end products that have been produced each year.
Future graduates gained knowledge and skills according to what has been
planned ahead by the government and education department. Therefore, the
government and the education department should plan according to the needs of
the society to assure that future graduates are able to find themselves a career
and reduce the unemployment rate of the country.

3.3

Suggestions for educational institutions


Educational institutions, either government or privatized need to consider
providing more courses and trainings regarding job skills for the future
graduates so that they are given the opportunity to engage in work-based
training programs. Also, the local universities can cooperate with the foreign
universities in organizing student exchange program similar to internship for a
semester, just to let the future graduates to gain working experience in different

environment. Many schools and educational institutions faced problem with


shortage of educators. However, they should ensure they hire lecturers in terms
of the qualifications, creative and flexible in managing the course contents.
Universities as well should emphasize job skills in the offered courses. Some
vocational schools do provide not only basic and specific knowledge about
certain job area but also train the students with specific job skills.
4.0 Summary

Many unemployed graduates were still searching for suitable jobs outside. The
main reason for the unemployment was graduates are not able to perform specific
skills or even basic skills to meet the requirement for the job areas. Employability
skills and personal values are the critical tools and traits the lead to succeed in the
workplace. These skills are all elements that can be learned, cultivated, developed and
maintained over lifetime. Mastering the job skills is inevitably important as it helps the
graduates to get a better job offers. Meanwhile, it increases the quality of the
employment in our country. Besides, this will reduce the rate of unemployment.
Being a good student is no enough, he or she must be able to show selfconfidence, intelligence, master few languages, leadership skill and many more.
Besides, the more job skills that a graduates can master, the higher possibility that he
or she gets the job. Later, enhance the quality of work at workplace.
It is the responsibility of the policy makers and the education institution to
bring out future graduate with good personality and equip with excellent job skills that
the employers seek for. Many schools and educational institutions faced teacher
shortage however it is not an issue to be discussed if the graduates are well equipped
with job skills that the employers wants.
Schools, higher education institutions and the government should work together in
developing job skills and basic knowledge in the students since they are the future
citizens of our country.
(2510 words)

4.0 Reference
Hansen, R.S. & Hansen, K. (2012). Quintessential Careers. What Do Employers Really
Want? Top Skills and Values Employers Seek from Job-Seeker. Retrieved on 3
March 2012 from
http://www.quintcareers.com/job_skills_values.html
Lloyd, M. A., & Kennedy, J. H. (1997). Skills employers seek. Retrieved on 29 March 2012
from http://www.psywww.com/careers/skills.htm.
Loughborough University. (2012). Careers And Employability Center: Skills
Employers Seek. Retrieved on 8 March 2012 from
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/service/careers/advice/applying/skills.html
NDT Resource Centre. (n.d.). Problem Solving Skills. Retrieved on 18 April 2012 from
http://www.ndt-ed.org/TeachingResources/ClassroomTips/Problem-solving.htm
Niznik, J. S. (2012). Computer Job Skills. Retrieved on 3 April 2012 from
http://jobsearchtech.about.com/od/computerjob13/a/compjobskills_2.htm
Vercillo, K. (2012). 10 Tips For Improving Marketable Job Skills. Retrieved on 8 March
2012 from
http://kathrynvercillo.hubpages.com/hub/10-Tips-for-Improving-MarketableJob-Skills

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