This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on January 17, 2022 - January 23, 2022

ONE would usually associate Talent Corp Malaysia Bhd (TalentCorp) with the Returning Expert Programme (REP) for Malaysians who have spent significant time working abroad.

In fact, the REP is only one of the many programmes the agency undertakes as part of its talent-building mandate for the country. The REP is still an important agenda for the agency, but TalentCorp wants to be known for more than that.

Group CEO Thomas Mathew, who assumed his role in November 2020, wants the agency to play a role in job creation and to get students ready for the job market.

“With the number of graduates being produced [each year], there must be growth in the economy to create new jobs, which can either be done locally or through foreign direct investments. Job creation in the high-skilled areas is important,” he says in an interview with The Edge.

One of the agency’s key focuses this year is its structured internship programme. Mathew recognises that local talent is the kind of talent that the country needs because it is sustainable for the long term. He adds that one common feedback from industries today is about how graduates are not industry-ready when they join the workforce.

“It may differ from university to university, but that is generally the perception among the industries. When an employee is taken into the company, he takes a while before getting into the stream of things because he is not industry-ready.

It is not a short-term solution, but something that needs to be done for the medium to long term. The “upskilling and reskilling” of graduates, rightfully, should be happening during their university days. Otherwise, it is double-dipping into government coffers — they are not ready in university and then when they come out, you try to get them ready by reskilling them again,” elaborates Mathew.

The agency has placed over 90,000 interns in companies over the last decade. It is coming up with more innovative policies to further develop local talent, subject to the government’s approval, in order to push the number of internship placements among students higher.

One such policy that TalentCorp is looking to introduce is requiring companies hiring expatriates to also formally carry out talent development locally.

“If the government’s concern is expatriates taking up the local job space, then how can we get companies to formally and consciously carry out talent development? A lot of them do, to be fair.

“But if we have something that formally connects an approval of an expatriate with, for example, taking on an intern, it will be good. That means the company will be consciously doing it. That’s something we are drawing up and, subject to government approval, we will roll it out,” he says.

TalentCorp is also working closely with the Ministry of Higher Education. The former is provided a grant by the latter for the purpose of upskilling interns — that is to train interns with skills that are specifically required or recommended by the industry partner that is taking on the interns.

These students who are moving on to internship will be identified through the MyNext portal, which is another initiative of TalentCorp that brings the industry, students and universities together. It is a platform that connects students with potential employers for internship purposes and has a built-in psychometric profile.

“For universities, the challenge is that there are more students and not enough career counsellors. Getting data on the students is important for career counsellors and we provide them with the data,” says Mathew.

So far, 10 universities have made it mandatory for all their students to register on MyNext and undergo psychometric assessment. This allows career counsellors to understand the students better and address any potential gaps.

“Through this portal, a company up north can look for a student down south or the [other] way around. Students can also be exposed to companies that they never knew of. In the critical occupation list (COL), we found out that sometimes a certain skill set may not be needed in a certain state, but it is in demand in another. So, through the portal, we hope that bigger companies will promote their internship and students will find [jobs in] places that they wouldn’t normally consider,” he adds.

TalentCorp is not stopping at the university level. They are also going into schools, promoting the COL to students, so that they will pick up something where there is job demand.

“The point is simply this: It is all for the next generation. With this, hopefully we reach our high-income nation status, or a more equitable distribution of wealth. That’s the challenge and objective we have in mind,” explains Mathew.

The agency is also roping in the industries together with academia through its initiative called the Industry-Academic Collaboration in order for both sides of the divide to better understand the demands of the job market.

“We want that to be expanded because the industries are the job creators. We need to listen to them and understand what they want. So, putting them together with academia is key. In 2021, we tied up with a lot of universities to bring something to them,” he says.

TalentCorp also receives regular feedback from the industry through a council of 15 industry leaders on the challenges they face within the local graduate space and the skills gap as well as view on where the future of work is headed towards. It is through this feedback that TalentCorp brings these insights to the government.

Another aspect of job creation that TalentCorp is passionate about is the Women’s Agenda Expert Council, which is a centralised platform to increase employability among women talent, starting from graduates to experienced hires.

Research has shown that women occupy more student space than men today, says Mathew. However, the conversion to work for women is low. Eighty per cent of men convert to work while for women, the number is lower than 50%.

According to him, incentivising women through tax incentives to re-enter the workforce after a career break is not sufficient.

“When women leave the workforce, the challenge they face when they rejoin it is confidence. Many leave within a short span of time after re-entering,” he says.

He believes that the awareness of the challenges that women might face after being out of the workforce for a while needs to be highlighted at an earlier stage.

“We go to universities today to tell the students what they will face [when re-entering the workforce after a career break] and we explain to them how they can work with TalentCorp while away to keep them abreast within their respective disciplines. This is to get them ready when they rejoin the workforce,” he notes.

In 2021, TalentCorp facilitated a total of 1,615 women to return to work under the career comeback programme.

As for its well-known REP, Mathew recognises its importance to the nation. The agency is looking to strengthen the REP but he admits that as of now, it does not have a database of Malaysians overseas.

Currently, the World Bank is working on a heat map for the diaspora for TalentCorp. Mathew expects the report to be finalised by the first quarter of 2022. It would help in identifying the Malaysians who are abroad and the skills that they have and could possibly contribute to the country.

“We are also looking at Singapore to find out about Malaysians there and what skills they have. Among the countries, Singapore probably has the largest pool of our own talent. Understanding who we have is the first step. We can’t guarantee employment, but if we can match them with companies’ requests, then we will assist,” he says.

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