Employment

An old acquaintance WhatsApp-ed me this morning asking if I could offer some advice to his youngest daughter. She's still mucking around home not able to get a job after graduating from a prestigious university in UK. She has been for job interviews a dozen times over the last 8 months. Often blamed for failing interviews is the proficiency in English. ”Impossible!” said her dad emphatically. ”My daughter has been a school debater in Malaysia. Educated overseas and mixed around with orang putih over there. She even writes superbly maintaining her own popular blog.”

Hmmm that's really something. Yet his daughter is having issues landing herself a job. And now I'm asked if I can offer her some advice? Perhaps wanting a quick fix from me. I hope he's not expecting me to wave my magic wand, which I have a few in the closet, so they can finally remove this nagging frustration in the family. 

But jokes aside, it is indeed soul-destroying for graduates to be staying at home getting on the nerves of their parents. In Malaysia, wealthy parents might have spent a fortune to get their children educated overseas with the high expectations their children could be financially independent in their old age. 

From the children perspectives, I'm sure they'd feel disillusioned with their own country which don’t see this graduate unemployment coming. Smart capable young men and women end up feeling dejected. They'd quickly lose their passion for the knowledge they had industriously pursued on campus just a few months back. Their lofty ambitions of building meaningful and lucrative careers down the drain. Bolehland is indeed in a deep shit if this continues.

Back to the advice. Do I have any? I have been sitting on the other side of the interview tables hundreds of times before. I should know why some brilliant candidates had failed to tick my boxes. Simple. They failed to impress the interview board. Members on the board weren’t experts in all academic fields. They just didn’t  understand and failed to appreciate what the interviewed candidates had to offer. The candidates failed the interview because they failed to communicate. They didn’t communicate clearly how their expertise can potential contribute to the job they applied. This failure of communication can be in any language, English, Malay, Urdu, Arabic, Spanish, Latin, Portuguese or whatever. It's not the medium of communication but the substance in communication.

So I told my friend the same old stuff I told my students all these years. Know your audience! When you're speaking, know who's listening. When giving a seminar, know who’s in the room. When on stage at a conference, know who are down there as participants. When writing, know who’s reading. Yes, it's not you who's going to be the ultimate judge. You might feel good and accomplished after your show but that could just be perasan only. The people ticking the box is ultimately the audience. I hope that help