On November 16th, Center for Vietnamese and Southeast Asian Studies and Center of Career Orientation and Human Resources Development co-hosted the replication seminar 2 on “Labour Market Analysis: Work & Employability”.

This replication seminar is part of the V2WORK project and divided into two sessions: morning session is for internal staff members in University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City; and afternoon session for external staff members from other universities. Host of the afternoon session was Dr. Trinh Thu Huong, Vice Dean of Faculty of International Relations.

Attending the training were representatives of the director board of career centre, department of student affairs from University of Technology – Ho Chi Minh City, University of Information and Technology, University of Agriculture and Forestry, Open University.

At the beginning of the training, Dr. Trinh Thu Huong introduced the labour market at Europe and at some other places including tendency of job choices and business in the future, working conditions, and employability of the youth. She also demonstrated the case study of Spain’s labour market to pin down factors of impact on working resources which was very important in proposing appropriate working policies. After her presentation, she and participants engaged in an extensive discussion.

Recording graduates’ information

Ms. Le Thi Tuyet Mai, expert from Centre of Student Support and Business Relation (University of Agriculture and Forestry) said that her university has been carrying out survey on graduates every year. According to results of 2016, 88% of graduates was employed while the other 12% was jobless and was looking for one.

For Open University, MA Nguyen Le Minh Long – Director of Career Centre shared his university’s statistics: 87% - 96% of graduates were employed. However, he remarked that we could not define clearly what is “working in the right environment and appropriate with our major in university”. He also raised some thoughts on retraining graduates in which he emphasized that retraining did not mean to provide brand new knowledge but to provide additional and appropriate skills in order for graduates to be able to adapt to a new environment. Besides, his university also provided accounts on database system for employer to recruit graduates.

MA Nguyen Van Toan, Head of the Department of Student Affairs said that his university always tried to update the curricula to meet the market demand. Moreover, the university tried to keep record of the salary level in order to give graduates best advices. He also stated that survey information of graduates such as salary, working company was placed at highest security level.

MA Nguyen Van Toan - Head of Department of Student Affairs (University of IT)

MA Tran Viet Toan – Director of Career Centre of University of Technology said that from 2013, the university has been surveying graduates to keep record of employment rate and salary level. Especially, the university had connection with Viettel Corporation, VNPT to train student to meet the job’s demand and to be employed immediate after graduation.

Connecting alumni

For University of Technology, connecting with alumni was done separately for each faculty, usually incorporated with anniversary events. Generally, it is not systematized. This was also same case for University of Technology and Information: alumni returned to school when there was news on employment. On the other hand, Open University and University of Agriculture and Forestry had specialized unit in contact with alumni to create a communication channel for a better and efficient connection.

Some photos of the seminar: 

Dr. Trinh Thu Huong - Vice Dean of Faculty of International Relations

Dr. Tran Dinh Lam - Director of CVSEAS

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Participants of the seminar