Strategies to improve employability skills for post graduate students in social science / Jasmine Ahmad, Azni Mohd Dian and Yarina Ahmad

Universities today are reckoned to be responsible not only on creation and dispersion of knowledge but to prepare career for the graduates. Employability of graduates is not only the concern of Malaysian Universities but rather a global concern. Universities in various parts of the world are also embarking on serious measures to ensure that graduate employability is a serious business. More importantly in today’s environment one of the key performance indicators for a university is graduate employability. The relationship between employability and university are vital as employability acts as the brand of the University, further emphasizing the marketability and quality of the graduates. The issues on employability of graduates are the responsibilities of many parties, the government, the universities, the employers and the graduates. Over the years, due to the changes in the graduate recruitment market, owning a degree is no longer sufficient to guarantee a satisfying career. There seem to be a mismatch between supply and demand of manpower. This paper discusses the skills employers seek for and how universities especially faculties can create strategies to increase the employability of the graduates. The focus of the paper is on the strategies for social science graduates especially at the post graduate level. This paper employs the mapping of strategies from website information and articles on Institutions of Higher Learning, locally and internationally. The result of the mapping shows pattern of strategies that universities can replicate and share.