Employability Skills for Hospitality Students in Malaysia

Abstract

Malaysia needs high skilled workforce to support growth of the industry. With dynamically changing job market and progressive technological change, employees are expected to keep abreast of global economics. In the process of achieving the status of developed nation by the year 2020, Malaysia needs to restructure its workforce to ensure that middle level workers are highly skilled. Current job environment demands multi-task and skills. Thus, university graduates must be prepared to meet the demand especially in the hospitality industry. The purpose of this study is to identify the level of employability skills in the hospitality field. This research applied quantitative methodology. The respondents consist of final year students in bakery and culinary programme. Stratified sampling was used to select students in hospitality programs from 22 vocational colleges in Malaysia. Questionnaires were distributed to 841 students in five regions which are Central, South, North, East and East Malaysia (Sarawak) in Malaysia. Descriptive analysis was used to analyse the quantitative data. The results showed that the level of hospitality employability skills among vocational students in Malaysia were at high level of competence (93.2%). The research has brought meaningful implications for hospitality vocational students, employers and policy makers.

Graduate employability skills: Words and phrases used in job interviews

“…Several studies have been conducted using interview evaluation documents taken from organisations, as revealed by Altonji and Pierret (2001), Ngah et al 2011, Ahmad et al (2017), Rahmat et al (2015), Islam and Shukri (2013), Mohamad et al 2013, and Sabrena et al (2013). Many organisations have also measured employability skills by using job interview documents in their analyses (Azmi et al, 2018).…”

“…Several studies have been conducted using interview evaluation documents taken from organisations, as revealed by Altonji and Pierret (2001), Ngah et al. (2011), Ahmad et al. (2017), Rahmat et al.…”

“…Based on evidence from numerous studies that have been conducted locally and abroad, it can be said that language proficiency manifests as an important factor of employability skills (cf. Ahmad et al., 2017; Azmi et al., 2018; Islam & Shukri, 2013).…”

Word Order in Job Interviews: The Malaysian Perspective

“…The objectives of their survey were to investigate the extent of proficiency among Malaysian university graduates in the recruitment process as well as the inclination towards the use of vocational English competency testing for employment. Further, Rahmat, Buntat and Ayub (2015), Ahmad, Kenayathulla and Idris (2017) and Azmi, Hashim, and Yusoff (2018) conducted studies on employability skills in general and revealed that most of the fresh graduates were unable to portray their employability skills due to poor proficiency. Furthermore, the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia (2016, 2017), Malaysian Employers Federation (2019), Chiara and Magali (2019), and Vincent (2020) have highlighted that many fresh graduates were not hired because of poor language proficiency.…”

The Relationship between Public Expenditure for Technical and Vocational Education and Employability Skills of the Graduates of Vocational Colleges in Malaysia

“…Based on training and development perspective, employability skills is often defined as an essential abilities needed by an individual to qualify them for employment and success in the workplace (Benson, Morgan & Filippaios, 2014;Ismail & Mohammed, 2015;Silva, Almeida & Strokova, 2015). As a result, this relationship may enhance graduate's employability skills and to make them employable (Ahmad, Kenayathulla & Idris, 2017;Moses, 2017;Rao, 2014).…”