News South Asia

Employers give skilled applicants priority in hiring

Employers are increasingly looking at working skills and job-hopping probability rather than "competitive salary requirements" when hiring new graduates, a survey has shown.

A survey conducted by Jobstreet.com of 3,000 new graduates nationwide last month showed that 69 per cent were unemployed while 72 per cent of enterprises have recruitment demand.

In the segment of young, new graduates, the market has both demand and supply, said Nguyen Xuan Trinh, marketing director for Jobstreet Viet Nam, said at a conference held in HCM City yesterday.

"However, new graduates cannot avoid worrying about being unemployed," Trinh said. "The ‘competitive salary requirement′ is no longer the prerequisite that employers consider to make recruitment decisions. They look at working skills and job-hopping probability."

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, 425,000 people would graduate during the 2014-15 academic year.

The third quarter of this year has begun with thriving signs in the economy with many more FDI projects.

The country has 17,499 FDI projects and 448,148 operating companies.

The Jobstreet survey also showed that 65 per cent of the company has high demand for recruitment in the second half of this year, especially in trading, information technology and engineering.

At least 10 per cent of recruitment demand is for new graduates. The fields with the highest demand for new graduates are information technology, engineering and customer care.

The biggest problems of the workforce were bad skills and inexperience, especially for new graduates, the survey showed.

At least 50 per cent of the new graduates have jobs not related to their main study at university.

Seventeen per cent of them could not find a relevant job, and 45 per cent said that they were took a temporary job while waiting for a relevant one.

Though 54 new graduates said they have no problems with their jobs unrelated to their main study, 46 per cent said they had to spend a lot of time to learn skills and knowledge of the job.

Enhancing the quality of the young workforce is not only the task of the education sector but also the recruitment sector, Angie SW Phang, general director of Jobstreet Viet Nam, said.

One of the biggest challenges is bringing relevant and appropriate jobs to the workforce, she added.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, Viet Nam has a population of 90.5 million.

At least 52.34 million people out of 69.2 million of working age have jobs.

However, 178,000 people with bachelor′s or master′s degrees are unemployed.

Viet Nam compared with region

The salary range Viet Nam employers offer to new graduates is VND2-5 million, accounting for one seventh of the salary for new graduates in Malaysia (VND14.3 to 16 million).

Viet Nam also ranks third in the region in the rate of opportunity for new graduates, after Indonesia and Singapore.

Recruiters in Singapore and Malaysia care the most about salary demand, while Viet Nam enterprises put working skills at the top, as 84 per cent care about workforce quality and only 14 per cent about salary costs.

Vietnamese enterprises said that new graduates not only lack experience but also require time to train skills, which causes enterprises to seek experienced candidates.

Other employers think new graduates may be unfaithful and job hop.

Surveys conducted by Jobstreet in the region showed that 26-29 per cent of employees were "faithful" to the first job. The rate was 12 per cent in Singapore.

When asked why they did not want to hire new graduates, 67 per cent of enterprises in Viet Nam blamed anxiety about ability and 33 per cent blamed the high rate of job hopping.

Malaysians cited bad attitudes, communication skills and high salary requirements as risks of hiring new graduates.

Viet Nam ranked fourth out of five countries in the region on English skills.

Only 5 per cent of Vietnamese new graduates were confident about their English, and 27 per cent said they were weak in overall English skills.

"Poor English skills are now a big disadvantage of the Vietnamese workforce, causing them to lose competitiveness in the global market," Phang said.