President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is reported to have given the administrators of Sri Lanka’s state universities an earful recently with regard to the unsuitability of graduates for the country’s job market.
He’s absolutely right.
Sri Lanka has and still does produce some truly remarkable graduates from universities such as that of Colombo, Peradeniya, Moratuwa, Jaffna…But there are also far too many graduates who aren’t fit to work in a koththu shop, let alone a top corporate. And for a nation that invests tens of billions of rupees in the country’s 15 state universities every year, that is not sufficient return on investment. Keep in mind also that the thousands of students who enter our universities are by far our best and brightest; the nation pins high hopes on them for our future. It is just plain annoying to see many of them come out with little to show for their years of study.
The authors have recruited, interviewed, and selected many employees at many institutions, and through this experience we have sadly concluded that while our graduates have subject knowledge, too many of them lack the all-round skills necessary for life. While we would love to hire people from all walks of life, what we most want to do during a selection process is to make sure that the person we hire will be an asset to the company and not a liability.
Unemployment rate in Sri Lanka
Unemployment in Sri Lanka by age group and sex
According to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts’ projections, the rate of unemployment in Sri Lanka is forecast to be 4.90% by the end of this year. The researchers estimate that Sri Lanka's unemployment rate would be 5.50 in 12 months. In the long term, according to our econometric model, the unemployment rate for Sri Lanka is expected to be about 5.40% in 2021 and 4.60% in 2022.
In such a scenario, with unemployment running highest among the youngest segment, it is clear that there needs to be significant upskilling of candidates for jobs. In many rapidly advancing countries, technology-centric jobs are being created for the advancement of their economies and employment of young people. We suggest a two-pronged approach based on digital development and soft skills development for Sri Lanka.
Profiling of digital jobs
Enormous opportunities exist in the field of digital marketing and related fields, especially in this post-Covid era.
Digital development is responsible for designing and maintaining prospecting, nurture, CX (customer experience), and customer support campaigns. The ideal candidate should have experience in Pardot/Salesforce, managing marketing automation efforts.
The UI (user interface) and user experience (UX), which are part of the field of digital development impact, focus on the interfaces and experiences of software users.
Digital skills can be learned in a simple way in a short time and can make a person employable.
Social media engagement skills
Social media has been a source of communication and information flows between creators and customers through the fabric of our society. Educators who acknowledge the power of social media should consider the capabilities and potential impact of each network in order to increase group engagement so that students can gain important and practical capabilities. Every graduate should have the ability to understand and use social media effectively. The marketing of social media is not just a tweet or a Facebook update, but also an understanding of brands, influencers and consumers.
Digital content marketing skills
Content is available in a variety of forms – blog posts, videos, podcasts, facts, and even updates on the status of social media. Marketers may spend their time optimising keywords or marketing campaigns. After all, its content drives a website or social media page and without it, customers can not understand the advantages of the product or service. In order to raise awareness of the brand, the content should create brands or influencers as thinkers. New hires in companies must also recognise the value of not only producing content, but also content related to and leveraging keyword research in a strategy. The content should create brands or influence thinkers to increase the brand's awareness. The importance of not only generating content, but also content relevant to and utilising keyword research in a strategy must also be understood by new hires of companies.
Social selling techniques
Sales professionals must be where their opportunities lie in order to reach and influence customers: Online. As social selling shows its importance to sellers, 90% of top sellers effectively use social selling tools – new contractors increasingly need their sales technology expertise.
More than 70% of sales professionals, according to LinkedIn, use social sales tools like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, and see them as having the highest income effect. As a new frontier for businesses, the provision of industry-specific training will help students with valuable and widely desirable after tools to pursue a sales/marketing/business development career.
Data analytics skills
Companies are not able to spend precious dollars based on patterns or intuition. Research needs to show what data is collected and analysed so that the next campaign can improve. The aim is to maximise the efficacy of any campaign and optimise investment returns. Data analytics effectively allow students to determine their roles as educated and data-driven.
As an example, numbers determine whether and by what percentage a campaign was effective. Usually, analytics go along with search engine marketing (SEM). These two complementary competencies help ensure that a business knows what customers want, and how best to attract attention to them.
Soft skills development
Here are other important attributes we look for in candidates and the questions we generally ask graduates, who naturally have had several more years to gather accomplishments and activities in life than Ordinary Level (O/L)-qualified people:
o Hard work – did you work anywhere part-time or fulltime, or intern anywhere, during your time in university?
o Dependability – what social responsibility programmes were you involved in during your time in university?
o Team player – what extracurricular activities did you involve yourself in? (blocking traffic on Ward Place, Lotus Road, Town Hall, or Fort Railway Station and preventing hardworking people from getting home or to work does not qualify)
o Leadership – which sports did you participate in while you were in university? Torturing (ragging) and sexually abusing younger people is not a sport. It’s a criminal activity. If you did this, you should be in jail, not asking us for a job
o Social fit – what are your other interests in life? One of the most irritating answers, and the one we get most often, is “I like to watch TV”. I mean, who doesn’t? That’s not an activity; it’s sitting on your couch at home. Turns us off from a candidate every time
o Curiosity to learn – what are you interested in studying further, now that you have a bachelor’s degree? It can be a short course, a master’s, or even a PhD
o Computer literacy – what computer programmes are you able to work with? (MSWord, PowerPoint, Excel, photo editing, etc.) Computer skills are needed in today’s world. You don’t have to be a wiz at it. At least know enough to get by and be willing to learn more
o Communication skills – can you do a presentation or speech and show us, with or without slides, in any language? Can you speak off the cuff?
What these attributes mean
These questions are designed to test the candidate’s work ethic. We have hired 18-year-old kids who had failed their O/Ls, over graduates, and every one of them has more than validated our confidence in them. Work ethic is almost always ingrained into a person by the time they are in their late teens or early 20s, although in rare cases it can be at a later age. What we want to know is whether this person will work hard, be a team player, support other team members, not be a clock-watcher, be willing to learn, etc.
If a person has graduated at the age of 24, his/her work ethic has already likely been set. So we would judge that work ethic by his/her participation in the world around him/her. That’s why social service work, sports, socialisation through activities, eagerness to explore the corporate world through part time jobs or internships, etc. do matter.
Knowledge of English means little to us, unless we are interviewing for a job that specifically requires English. We’ve watched many brilliant scientists and corporate folks from non-English speaking countries giving presentations in English. It’s not the mastery of language or the funny pronunciation that matters; it’s the person’s knowledge of the subject and his/her presentation skills. Most Sri Lankans don’t speak English well anyway, although we’re quick to laugh at the English-speaking accents of other nations.
Not everyone can be great at sports, or be good at leadership and extracurricular activities. But what we want to know is that you have tried. We’d much rather like to hear an answer like “I really love animals, so I help this organisation rescue stray dogs”; or “I work with an organisation that helps elderly people”; or “I love to donate blood; I’ve done so 20 times already”; or “I was involved in a campaign that planted 1,000 trees”.
As for the question of part-time work or internships, it isn’t whether you worked for a blue-chip company or delivered pizzas part time on a motorbike. We want to know that you understand that work means, well, work; not sitting at a desk and looking down on people who weren’t fortunate enough to get degrees that the taxpayers funded.
We don’t really test people for intelligence. A graduate has usually proven his/her intelligence, through O/Ls, Advanced Levels (A/Ls) and a degree programme. We are testing the person’s all-round attitude.
A lot of what we look for is about so-called “soft skills”, which the pundits now say are the requirements for the future. The fact is that they always were.
We used to ask whether candidates know shorthand or multi-finger typing, which would be a clear advantage. But we’ve given it up. No one knows shorthand anymore, and too many youngsters today mainly still use two fingers.
What it all boils down to, in the end, is this: Are you the type of person who a company can depend upon? That’s what we want to know.
The solution to soft skills
So here are a few easy steps that can be taken quickly to transform the type of people that graduate from our universities:
- Include some form of internship or part-time work for at least two years as a requirement for graduation; after all, these are fully funded degree programmes. The country’s large corporations and chambers of various industries would be delighted to give them opportunities. It will also provide undergraduates with additional money
- Universities should engage in social service activities and give groups of students projects to work with social service organisations and environmental organisations. It’s a very enlightening and uplifting experience to help others. This includes animals and the environment. This will also improve skills such as communication and leadership
- Encourage physical fitness or physical sports. Our universities have vast land areas that can be used
- Form clubs and societies in universities and require each student to participate in at least one – bird watching, stamp collecting, coin collecting, chess…At least learn how to make attractive protest signs, and not those red and yellow monstrosities they wave around
- Teach computer skills. Why is this so difficult? Universities have lots of computers. Just hire someone to teach undergrads how to use them
- Career and academic career guidance. Too many of the graduates we have interviewed are simply not interested in going on to obtain postgraduate qualifications. They also don’t seem to know much about the masters and PhD programmes available in this country, let alone overseas. Some guidance is called for here in academic affairs