Tips for getting your first job in Malaysia

Don't is my advice!

That is "in" Malaysia. Reasons are low chances/low pay.

What works best is to be sent to Malaysia by current company or get a job via normal channels . For oil and gas, education and ITC if you have to ask strangers online how you haven't networked enough/not the type to be a successful expat. Being a successful expat means being independent. self-driven, a doer not a follower and most of all flexible. Teachers have online resources and agents like Research Associates for example. Or the network as many get jobs via who they know. Those who expect to send a few CVs off and get a job are not suitable persons to be expats. All the expats I know who arrived and made a success of it never joined a forum. They went out and met people.

Qualifying for an Employment Pass in Malaysia  requires a university degree and 2 years relevant working experience.

i just graduated in march from one of the private uni in malaysia. is it impossible for me to find job here with no working experience in civil engineering sector? I have been looking for 3months now, all of my application was unsuccessful. any tips from any sr. civil engineer here. what are the company that will hire foreign/international workers? now i dont mind any sector, as long as they are hiring. thanks

Ahmed - the next step will be to do some Internships. Without any practical experience, there is no value to an employer.

ive done my internship during my studies in one of the local company here in malaysia. what next? i m really lost.

To do Internships that are not arranged by the Uni - those are just work study/experience and not the same as commercial internships. But of course you need funds to support yourself and to be honest I don't think you will find it easy to get an internship with a company in Malaysia. Only large international companies will offer them and your results will need to be top notch as well. Only a small percentage of companies in Malaysia can actually hire foreigners because of rules about their incorporation. The main issue about getting a job is you need a minimum salary of RM5k per month to qualify for an Employment Pass and that level of pay is not for trainees but people who have experience.

thanks for your advice. appreciate it. from what you said, it safe to say its kind of impossible to find a job in malaysia for international fresh grad. this is sad. 
but yea, interships will hv very2 low allowance.
how about working as part timers? still need a working permit?

Hi Ahmed, I used to be a fresh grad looking for job here. I know it's hard for fresh grad, so you need to put more effort.
All I did is to prepare a good CV then send them to companies. You can create a list of target companies that you want to work for. Or you can find it on job sites like jobstreet, jobsDB... (It's been a long time and I don't remember how many job websites are there in the market now)
The other solution is that you go to university Career Advisory unit and ask them for help.
Backup plan: you go back to your country, look for opportunities to work in Malaysia from your country. I bet they will pay you higher than you find job here.
I hope my little advice above can help you. Wish you all the best

An an employer I can say we didnt require experience before employment, and we didnt care about race, religion, age or ugly/pretty. We looked at, and treated all equally.

We DO care about who you are, your dreams and goals, your confidence, and flexibility to take the lessons of learning new things everyday so that in time you can be strong enough to leave us and do greater things on your own. Id be thrilled to one day learn a prior staff who knew nothing, grew out of us and then competed and ran us out of business. Id be laughing hysterically.

Alas, most applicants were clueless and hopeless, looking for the employer to come up with all their answers to life instead of learning to find them themselves; they didnt care about the job, only money and rapid advancement and perks and allowances for which they had nothing to offer to offset that. Ok, you want RM5000 entertainment allowance. Ok, fine, its yours. But what are you going to do to earn that back for the company? What are your ideas? What is your plan?  Here is a problem, a task, how would you go about solving this riddle? Nothing, a blank stare in return instead of "ok here are three ideas about how I would solve this problem." "Here are five ideas to change your bottom line this year and this is why they will work."  Why couldnt they simply say that?

In our company, though we trained, be basically pose problems and leave it to staff to come up with the solutions, as opposed to simply telling a person exactly what to do. We want people to THINK. But if they never had the exposure of THINKING THROUGH A PROBLEM, what good are they to us? No. Instead, they wanted to work on a team, hide inside a team and get through the day doing as little as possible, especially thinking. How can this work?

In our case, we are a bit different than many in that we value a good brain, confidence, creativity and self-reliance. To me, those are far better qualities than a meanlingless cert or merely experience in which nothing like that ever rubbed off.

That should give clue how to land a job, first or 50th. And if you say, "well I dont have any ideas" therein lies the problem and there you sit unemployed! A company doesnt survive on certs and experience, it survives on growth and if you cannot help a company grow, you've got nothing.

I never have cared a persons background or looks or whether they were cloned people you see all over the country. I asked, can you do the job, yes or no? Having the strict hiring scheme also had an excellent effect overall. People coming from different backgrounds, all thinkers and doers, created synergy and we made happy progress. Thats my take on it, good luck to all.

Advice #2

Any advice on a first job has to start with what a person really wants to do, whats akin to their soul, what they gravitate to naturally, what they are passionate about. Doing work you love automatically solves 80% of your problem. Do not do work you hate, work that other people tell you is good, work that focuses on salary because in the end you will depress staff around you, yourself too, and will soon be in the market again and everyone wasted money and time.

Doing work you love is easy to say on paper but the hardest to achieve. For this, you have to think how your skills and talents, the real ones, not the fake ones, can be used in adjacent and adjoining fields which may be easier to attain and still bring internal satisfaction. You can always move up later. Like a friend said once, one has to learn to separate the possible from the probable.

For this reason we would not hire anyone "looking for a job in any sector as long as they are hiring" because the applicant is literally saying "im a dead-end staff."

I love to meet people who love what they do. The energy and enthusiasm is contagious, the positivity paves the way to a constant flow of new ideas and progress. People who hate their jobs bring down everyone, they spend their time in backbiting, backstabbing, rumor mongering, they hate themselves, their boss and their family too. You can count on them to be on facebook every night saying "i hate my life! I hate my life!" Of course you do. How is that good for an employer?

My ex-fiance used the traditional way of hiring. Adverts, CV's, and sitting at a table reviewng the winning CV's with the applicant. I hate that. What good is served when the applicant is largely silent while expecting one to judge them on information that is often quite false, poorly written, with details difficult to verify?

My method was always spy tactics. I never liked to hire anyone who was actually looking for a job. I like to observe people in their natural surroundings where they dont hide, dont lie, have nothing to win or lose and dont know that when Im talking to them they are actually in a job interview. I stay open minded and ready when i meet people in an office, a train, a restaurant. I listen, ask things, get to know them, see how they act and what they do. If they have qualities I like, I'll make some kind of a plan to meet them again.

Example, in 2008 I met a filipino maid in a church. I was impressed with her drive, enthusiasm, tenacity and fierce, fierce loyalty. She described life problems and measures she took to solve them. She described awful, horrible things and solutions I would never have attempted myself.  I offered her a job, she took the job, became an A+++ staff in really hard work who is still with us today. I would not even dream of losing her.

Another example, Im after two Malay women and a Malay man who work at a post office. The man, he showed uncommon kindness to me when I had been in front of him several times with postal problems. In one problem in which I would have to re-pay postage for delivery on a misdirected package, he not only quickly solved the problem, he took the money from own his pocket and paid it. I knew this was hard for him, a low postal salary, family and all, and I refused. But he insisted and i accepted. THATS the person i want--compassionate, sensible, solution-finding.  As to the women, Im in the post office almost everyday during the past three years and got to know mostly everyone in there. Two stood out as fast, professional, gentle, kind, efficient and consistently so. I want them all but id rather continue to plan to sell the company and complete a migration so there is no place for them right now.

But why hire someone on the basis of an act of kindness? Obviously its not quite as simple as that but every human being, every boss, responds to positivity. Most jobs can be taught. So who would you rather wake up to everyday, a cold-hearted sourpuss, or a happy, like-minded and efficient person who brings their good qualities to everything they do and touch, not to mention ultimately customers?

You will say its not like this in Malaysia. Yes I know where I am--but one human to another human is what it really is underneath. Bosses are the way they are because of staff; staff because of bosses, so both fulfill this sense that only a cert matters. This is because applicant doesnt show the human side, the pliable, flexible, I-want-to-learn side and the CVs wind up in the dustbin. What you lack in one thing, show the other, what you lack there, show the next one. To me, what KIND of animal you are matters first because the greatest cert on earth doesnt ensure performance and attitude.

My sister defines success as seeing yourself the way others see you. Its true, SAYING you are great and wonderful means nothing if the potential boss doesnt see it genuinely too. Thats the difference because a boss will always make room for the person they like, want, and will give them a sense of joy and pride when they walk in the office everyday--and the same for your feelings too. The rest is relatively simple.

Thanks for reading and think it over while you are on the job trail.

I'm working in an engineering consulting office and I can assure that fresh graduates have nothing to give. a normal engineer has to be trained for at least one year (full time) before he/she can be productive. therefore, most companies are looking for experienced employees. however, there is an exception for software engineers, IT, graphics..etc. I mean IT relevant jobs can get a job without experience.

have been living in malaysia for 13 years and its very very hard to get a job for expats as they tend to have issues with the visa. it is a tedious process of obtaining a work permit. Most of them emphasize on hiring locals even though there tend to be a certain number of eligible foreigners out there. I'm currently hunting jobs for some experience for my degree and it seems to be a hard process.

Nemodot wrote:

Don't is my advice!
What works best is to be sent to Malaysia by current company or get a job via normal channels . For oil and gas, education and ITC if you have to ask strangers online how you haven't networked enough/not the type to be a successful expat. Being a successful expat means being independent. self-driven, a doer not a follower and most of all flexible. Teachers have online resources and agents like Research Associates for example. Or the network as many get jobs via who they know. Those who expect to send a few CVs off and get a job are not suitable persons to be expats. All the expats I know who arrived and made a success of it never joined a forum. They went out and met people.

I completely agree with @Nemodot
That's how I got my job here in Canada. Met my employer in a networking event and stayed connected from there.  Successful job seekers (expat or not), are the ones that go beyond simply sending resumes over job portals or joining forums. Basically, you have to think out of the box and be creative and take action as well. I had my own website, made my own namecards. Met various folks over coffee to chit chat. Followed up etc. Joined multiple networking events. Hosted events. Joined hackatons, competitions, wrote proposals etc. Just to name the number things you can do. People who pose silly questions over forums just expect to be "spoon-fed" with information! And do not think for themselves.

Nemodot wrote:

That is "in" Malaysia. Reasons are low chances/low pay.

Sadly, folks in the software side are inadequately compensated in Malaysia. Now, on the hardware ICT aspect, there are pockets of companies that compensate well. If you don't intend to move too far, jump across to Singapore for a better software scene and better pay of course. But personally I would never go to Singapore to raise a family. If I was a bachelor and just starting out, I might.

Hi. It's quite difficult indeed. I personally came to Malaysia to find a job once there, as 5 months of research from Europe did not lead anywhere.

I got one after 4 months. I'm  at 2,5 years of experience in Marketing, not much to do with the sectors that are famous for recruiting expats in Malaysia: engineering and IT mostly.

How I did was that I went onto
- jobfairs or
- to free industry events/roadshows via Eventbrite and
- apply massively via Jobstreet with application as customized as you can.
- Cleared, fine tuned and enhanced my online presence strategy to have a consistent profile on different channels: Facebook, LinkedIn, Internet Website, Job Portals

The difficult thing is to find the companies able to hire expats, they usually have MSC status or are referred in the selective industry associations delivering specific statuses.

Now I work for FOREFRONT International, a creative agency, as a Marketing Research Executive. I met them on a job fair and they did all the necessary to hire me.

Well, reading these last few posts brings Advice #3. The first job, any job you are looking for might be you.

Im reading the recent posts and it was not any different for me when I was 22 and fresh out of school. They said I didnt have enough experience or the wrong experience. Or something. I couldnt get a job to save my life. Later when I had experience, they said I had too much, or the wrong type. Or something. Ok, fine ALL STOP.

I had energy and ideas but nobody wanted them so I opened my own company. I had no capital but I did have the piles of refusal letters and I went through and made lists of each reason for a refusal. I vowed to hire people who were smarter than me but never judge them on the refusal reasons given to me. With wrong schools, wrong age, wrong height, wrong graduation date, wrong experience all out of the way, now I could talk to candidates straightforwardly about the future. And of course, now I had a job myself. Thats the background of my posts, Advice 1 and 2.

The truth is that there are usually too many people chasing too few jobs so where does it leave you? If you are so great, so wonderful for a some company you are applying to and its not working, how does doing it for yourself make you anything but better off? I mean, you are so great, right?

Of the people looking for jobs right in here, why not you all meet, pool your talents and resources and start something together? You are all on a common mission, you have jobs which cant be refused, you have instant staff and goals and targets and you are on your way. You dont need capital as much as you need commitment and hard work. After all, isnt that what you keep writing down on CVs and handing to others you expect to believe in you? Youre great and wonderful and committed and hardworking, thats what you keep saying right? And if you are not, how would you expect anyone to hire you?

Im reminded of a quote from a famous mountain explorer. He said, "i'll find a way or make a way." Right. Correct. Do you know why you have trouble finding your first or tenth job? Not because you dont believe in that quote but because you instill value into things where there is no value. Your CVs, job fairs, letters, interviews, newspaper ads...i have a surprise for you, they dont mean crap. But everyday you pile the mountains of CVs into the mail and call it work, that you had a good day, that you accomplished something. And then nothing happened. No, what matters is your resourcefulness, your ability to become a MacGiver in your own life, your willingness to stop following the well worn paths and crowds right off the cliff. The actor, Anthony Quinn, once said in a movie in which he played a Greek, "there are only two things that matter, what a man has in his mind and what he has in his pants." Thats a good spot to end this post.

Think new or die. Round up all you candidates together. Meet. Start something. Figure it out. Go!