Fresh graduates need to be patient to meet the ‘skill gap’

Henry Brockman

The younger generation and local employers both need to recognize that there are challenges for new graduates seeking to start their careers upon graduation.
Henry Brockman, Chief Administrative Officer of SJM Cotai, listed two major challenges that lie ahead for the younger generation.
According to Brockman, most companies in the past intended to hire graduates for life, and they would subsequently invest a lot in early training. “However, things changed. The clear message is that you are the only person looking after your career,” said Mr Brockman. He added that many young people have left their positions, reasoning that their qualifications “don’t make sense” within the company. “That didn’t happen 20 or 30 years ago, but it happens all the time now,” he explained.
Brockman stated that “the job market is more fluid, and some companies have given up doing that [early training] because there’s no return of investment. But some companies are still doing that, such as in the accounting industry. Generally speaking though, it’s not like it used to be.”
The second factor is that, nowadays, it’s hard for someone to be placed into a “box” or category. “In companies today, opportunities come much more quickly and there’s also opportunities to change. (Young graduates) have to have [a] very broad [range of] skills,” he said.
As a potential employer of recent graduates, Mr Brockman also admitted that companies in Macau often encounter a certain skill gap that graduates need to fill. He explained that back when the economy was first opened up, many of these gaps were filled by hiring overseas workers.
The executive advised new graduates to be “patient” when seeking to fill such a gap. “Macau is still a relatively small job market compared to Hong Kong and other places overseas, so the graduates may find it more difficult to find that ‘perfect fit’ between their skills and their jobs straight away. They also need to be more patient. They may need to do an intern job before they find the perfect job. (…) I won’t call it ‘perfect’, but ‘good fit’ jobs do exist.”
He expressed the opinion that local employers would be glad to employ local graduates, who would encounter less of a culture shock and would be more easily integrated into the workforce. GY