JOHOR BARU: The first in a series of Employability Skills forums was attended by more than 150 people from the human resource industry including human capital development practitioners, students and undergraduates from in and around Johor Baru.
The forum, entitled "The Importance of Employability Skills as Required by Employers", was held at Southern University College recently and was aimed to address issues related to employability skills.
It was organised by HAZ Polaris Centre of Excellence Sdn Bhd in collaboration with the Iskandar Malaysia Sustainable Community Network to highlight potential issues and come up with possible solutions.
Graduate employability and employability skills are national concerns. In today's competitive job market, employers are looking beyond qualifications and graduates need to equip themselves with employability skills.
As Iskandar Malaysia is rapidly developing, there is an abundance of job opportunities here but the question is if we have the necessary skills to match these jobs?
The speakers were Sreedhar Subramaniam of ABN Xcess via video telecast, Nor Hisham Hussein from Iskandar Regional Development Authority and Azman Mohd Hussein from Medini Iskandar Malaysia Sdn Bhd.
"A legacy built in life will carry through into career, family and the community," said Sreedhar.
Nor Hisham, who has interviewed thousands of candidates for recruitment, emphasised that there is no formal study course to teach people character and attitude, the very qualities that employers are seeking.
In his presentation, he discussed the answers to pertinent questions like, "What do you read? Who are your friends? and What is your ambition?" He said by 2025, there will be three million jobs available and insisted that opportunities will be found when you look for it.
Meanwhile, Azman discussed the definition of soft skills and why it is important to have soft skills.
The forum panel comprising Nor Hisham, Azman, Junaidah Abu Talib from Talent Solutions Sdn Bhd and Alma Othman of Adecco Personnel Sdn Bhd, responded to questions from the floor.
"The first forum was a success as we managed to reach out to our intended audience and our speakers addressed the issues well," said HAZ Polaris managing director Elilen Chandra, who was also the moderator of the Q & A session. By Peggy Loh