Improving Employability Skills in the Finance & Accounting Sector

On 7 April 2021, the BMCC’s Higher Education Committee organised a webinar aimed at enhancing the collaboration between the government, professional bodies and the higher education institutions to drive the finance and accounting industry forward through talent development.

Our line-up of esteemed panellists comprising Luke Joseph of BP Malaysia, Prof. Dr. Rozainun Hj Abdul Aziz of International University of Malaya-Wales (IUMW), Thomas Mathew of TalentCorp, Prof. Wing Lam of University of Reading, and Dr Nurmazilah Dato’ Mahzan of the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA) talked about current collaborative efforts that have worked successfully and further initiatives that could be undertaken to promote growth and improve collaboration as well as overcome current challenges.

In discussing employability skills for the finance and accounting industry, the panellists cited critical thinking, the ability to analyse and articulate, commercial awareness and people skills as some of the key requisites. The discussion also touched on the mismatch in the definition of “employability” from the academia’s perspective versus employers’ perspective. To the academia, employability refers to a set of achievement skills and personal attributes that help graduates gain employment, whereas to employers, employability refers to work-readiness. Hence, collaboration among the government, the higher education sector and industry is important to bridge the gap between paper qualification and work-readiness within our graduates and influence successful career outcomes.

Calum Shepherd of Kaplan Financial Services moderated the panel session.

Watch the webinar replay here: