Mohan Rathakrishnan of Universiti Utara Malaysia’s (UUM) School of Education said graduates should take short-term or part-time courses to improve on their current skills instead of trying to acquire new skills.

“For example, graduates capable of doing business can improve their latent interpersonal skills by taking courses related to the model of doing business,” he said.

He added that public universities were offering a number of such skill-enhancing courses and he urged job seekers to take advantage of them.

“I found out that many unemployed graduates are instead looking for jobs that had no relevance to their fields of study,” he told FMT.

According to Mohan, the courses being offered could inspire creativity, encourage graduates to become autonomous and innovative and build enough confidence in their abilities to reduce their dependence on the government for employment.

He said graduates wishing to become entrepreneurs but were clueless as to how to change their approaches should apply for these courses.

He described the courses as being aimed at helping in the creation of income growth in the short term.

Mohan also said universities could help these graduates make connections with industry professionals.

According to the statistics department, the number of unemployed Malaysians had increased to 778,200 people as of July and the employment rate remained unchanged at 4.8% from the previous month.