Fresh Graduates = Liabilities?

Employers: Fresh graduates not suitable and are ‘liabilities’

The above link from The Star highlights the opinion of the marketing director of Singapore and Malaysia Kelly Services Sdn. Bhd., a recruitment agency. According to her, fresh graduates need to be retrained before able to contribute to the firm, beside having high demand for the first job and poor communication skills. Thus, hiring fresh graduates is costly for firms and they are considered as liabilities to firms.

I agree with her on the point of unrealistic demand and poor communication skills among fresh graduates. Some fresh graduates overestimate themselves, demanding ridiculous rate of wages, and hope to immediately "cash in" their effort in university study without objective comparison with their skills and value to the firms. Furthermore, some fresh graduates are relatively weak in their communication skills, particularly their English. This thus distort their ability of performing on certain jobs including marketing related works.

However, I strongly disagree with 2 of her points. First, fresh graduates are not liabilities and will never be liabilities to firm. Fresh graduates from reputable universities will certainly be able to offer certain skills unavailable elsewhere. Contribution of fresh graduates can be in the form of hard skills or soft skills. By calling them liabilities basically highlight the failure of top management to harness their strengths.

Secondly, according to her, "companies would rather hire experienced and skilled professionals who can bring instant returns". I highly doubt the validity of this statement. The biggest strength of fresh graduates is their creativity, innovation and ability to transform the dynamics of business world. By going through the process of formal undergraduate (and postgraduate) studies, they are equipped with theories and application skills. The combination of such skills will enable them to change the dynamics of the economy in general.

That's probably is the biggest difference between formal university study and workplace experience. In other words, formal knowledge is the root of a plant while experience is the leaves of the plant. Experience can only help in ways that occurred before and not in unforeseeable circumstances. However, the world of economy is dynamic and constantly changing. New problems will be in the "world of infinity" for experienced person. Since formal tertiary education highlights theoretical knowledge and application, they are trained to handle dynamically new problems.

Certain firms that emphasize on long term prospect will require these fresh graduate to lift them to new levels.

Sadly however, some firms don't. They do not recruit fresh graduates for their strength, rather wish to have them "continue the trend" and takeover the same tasks as the previous labours. They want their "hands" rather than their "brain". They expect fresh graduate to instantly understand the operation of a firm and start generating revenue for a firm.

Recruiting labours is similar to investing in financial assets. We should not aim for immediate positive return and doing so will only expose us to greater risks and may backfire. Labours should be treated as assets for the future and should not be require to instantly generate revenue for firms. Since growth in productivity outpace growth in wage rate, firms are in great position to profit from recruitment, thus ensuring a steady stream of long term income, providing that they can hold the "asset" long enough.