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LEARNING SKILLS FOR OPEN
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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
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-
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.
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
3.3
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