Does this field of study suits me?

Saturday, 14 May – This event was organised by the Exco Akademik dan Kerjaya Sesi 2015/2016. It is a talk given by two invited guest speakers, Mr Feroz Hayat Khan and Dr Rizal Abu Bakar. There are two slots in which students can participate which are morning slot from 9.30 am until 11.00 am and the afternoon slot from 1.30 pm until 3.30 pm.

            The invited guest speaker for the morning slot is Mr Feroz Hayat Khan with his slot, Employability Series: Developing Your Professional Image. Mr Feroz started his talk by sharing his experience when he first started to work as an engineer. He further stated that contrary to popular belief, working as an engineer focused more on managerial work rather than work involving engineering knowledge. So, he decided to take a Master in Business to further develop his skills and knowledge.

            He introduced the definition of employability which is basically a set of skills and knowledge as well as revealing the statistic on unemployment of which 90% are fresh graduates. Mr Feroz also give out the answer to the question, why employers do not employ fresh graduates? The reasons are poor character, attitude or personality, lack of problem solving skills, poor communication skills and picky in seeking jobs. In work, he emphasised, we may do things that we do not like and that a large percentage of it will require management skills.

            In this slot, Mr Feroz focused on communication skills which consists of three parts – 55% non-verbal, 38% tone or voice inflection and 7% words conveyed. Body language is essential in building a professional image, that is, how others would perceive us from our behaviour. There are eight categories of body language which are facial expression, gestures, paralinguistic – intonation, pitch and tone, body movement and posture, proxemics, eye gaze, haptic and appearance.

            There are many benefits of mastering body language that is as a repetition of our words, reducing contradiction between what we say and what we show, as a substitution to words such as nodding in agreement, complementing and accenting our words.

            In terms of our appearance, our attire should suit the purpose such as office wear or casual smart or casual. Furthermore, picking the right choice of colours. As an extra, we may wear our own unique style. However, to do this, we must be really confident. Regarding body movement and posture, while standing, our posture must be straight and heads up, hands clasped in front of the chest, our feet in line with our shoulders as well as leaning slightly forward to show interest in what we listen and backward when we are talking.

            There are many types of smile but the most suitable smile to use is the genuine smile. Genuine smile is the smile that reaches the eye, that is, there are wrinkles around the eye when we smile. For handshake, our handshake must be firm, bounce or shake once or twice and while shaking the other person’s hand, we should state our first name.

Eye contact is a must and the area suitable for us to look at is the triangle between the eyes and the nose. If we are starting to feel uncomfortable making eye contact, it is best to pretend to do something with our hand such as arranging and looking at our files so as to cover our uncomfortableness with prolonged eye contact. We should also do mirroring, that is, mimicking the atmosphere created by the other person such as when the atmosphere is relaxed, we too should behaved in a relaxed manner. Mirroring can help to avoid an awkward moment – the uncomfortable silence. Mr Feroz ended his slot with the advice to keep practising in order to master our body language.

            The second slot, Career Selection was conducted by Dr Rizal Abu Bakar. Dr Rizal related some of his work experience such as being part of an aircraft maintenance company, a civil engineering company and being part of Motorola which is electronic engineering. He states, however, that his Bachelor’s Degree is not related to his first three jobs as his degree is actually in Psychology. He said that what we should take away from this is our degree do not dictate what career we should have. Career is all about choice.

            Dr Rizal shared with us the acronym TEA. T is for time in which he advised us not to wait for that perfect job but to grab any job opening. We should take every opportunity that arrives to gain work experience. E is for effort. We must make the effort to flesh out our skills in programs or clubs. We should also join courses or programs such as training in Adobe Photoshop even if we need to pay for the course or program. A is for attitude. We must be proactive and do not keep on waiting.

            He also gave the acronym of USA for resume. He states resume is all about the first impression. U is for update our resume frequently, S is for saleable and A is for amplify. He shared the story of one student who was unemployed for six months after graduation who came to see him and he instructed the student to come back the next day with all his assignments. The next day, Dr Rizal went through the student’s assignments and picked out items that could be included in his resume. Dr Rizal also instructed him to complete his resume that very same day and once completed, to see him once more. The completed resume was emailed by the student that afternoon to a company that is currently looking for an employee. The day after the email was sent, the student called Dr Rizal to inform him that he has received a job offer and that job offer was the result of the email which was sent the previous day. This, Dr Rizal emphasised, is how powerful a resume is.

            Dr Rizal also answered some questions such as pointer vs. skills, which is more important? The answer is pointer gives an advantage but skills lands the job. There is also a question whether being an exchange student affects employability and the answer is yes as in the resume, international exposure can be added. Dr Rizal then passed the mike to Ms Nurul Fatihah, a career counsellor trainee, to share a bit on personality and career.

            Ms Nurul reveals that a person’s career should best suit his or her personality. She shared a story of her client who has the personality of having the job done right and fast working in a laid-back atmosphere resulting in a very high level of stress. Ms Nurul guided her client to resolve her problem and her client has now changed her career to be a trainer. Ms Nurul also stressed on the importance of R – realise who we are. When deciding on a career, we should know our personality, values that we treasured, interest, skill, roles and needs.

By: Pliny Narong