Literature review

According to Nurita (2004), the general agreement among Malaysian employers

indicates that Malaysian graduates are well skilled in their areas of occupation but
unfortunately they lack the soft skills as employability skills.

Many employers now had searching for graduates who were balanced in good
educational achievement and possessing soft skills such as communication skills,
interpersonal skills and ability to be flexible. It will that apply in foundation skill
across the board, no matter what job the employee is performing (Lawrence, 2002)

To guarantee that employability of their graduates in higher education institutions,

therefore, they need to equip the right skill set. They are looking for graduates not
only with specific skills and knowledge, but with the ability to be proactive, to see
and respond to problems. With total 133 person.
Malaysia Government already do a survey about those graduates student was
discovered that 60,000 under unemployed because lack of experience, poor
English and poor communication skill. This is because theyre pursued studies
irrelevant to the market place (New Straits Times, 2005)

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said, mostly graduates will often lose
out in the job market because theyre lack of confidence due to their poor
command of the English language in Malaysia (Malay Mail Online, 2015)

Based on the research method, under unemployed graduate mostly female

especially from the Malay ethnic group and theyre lower income group. The
data analysis total of 81 percent from unemployed graduates had attended
public universities where the medium of instruction in many courses was the
Malay Language.
By the way, many graduates seem to lack such common competencies and
this makes them less marketable in employment (Minister of Education,
2000).

According to the Quek (2005), Malaysian graduate employees had

attempted to empirically address the current state of generic competencies
regarded to be serious work performance.

Using the survey method, the study identified interpersonal skills,

knowledge-acquiring skills and flexibility as being highly important in
contributing towards the success in work performance. In addition, graduate
employees expressed value-acquiring skills, practical orientation skills and
cognitive skills as being important for successful work performance.
Most of the employers in industry had positive perceptions towards
overseas graduates (New Straits Times, 2003)

At the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the northern region of

Malaysia found out that employers are more satisfied with oversea
graduates as compared to local graduates in terms of the following
generic competencies: communication skills, confidence/positive self-
image, leadership/problem-solving skills and creative/innovative skills.
(Suresh, 2006).

This is in contrast with 26 percent from private institutions of higher

learning and 34 percent who are foreign graduates.
Lawrence, T. (2002) Teaching and Assessing Employability Skills Through
SkillsUSA Annual Quality Congress Proceedings, ABI/INFORM Global, pp 285-294.

Syed Jaymal Zahiid (2017). PM: Poor English eroding Malaysian graduates self-belief.
ONLINE] Available at: http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2015/11/15/poor-
english-a-major-handicap-its-not-just-young-doctors-workers-in-various-sectors-too-
have-a-weak/ [Accessed: 9 July 2017]

Quek (2005). Employers' Preference for Foreign Trained Graduates - Myth or Reality?
(PDF Download Available). Available at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297479234_Employers%27_Preference_for_F
oreign_Trained_Graduates_-_Myth_or_Reality [Accessed: 9 July 2017]