ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
Higher education and employment are two important life aspects for students as education is a stepping stone for them to enhance their future career opportunities. It is crucial to examine how they perceive the performance of their university in preparing them for the job market, as well as the early employment problems encountered by them. Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted to get inputs from 18 fresh accounting graduates. The study found that the fresh accounting graduates encountered various problems while at work. These early employment problems include: (i) insufficient technical knowledge, (ii) poor communication skills, (iii) not tech-savvy, (iv) difficulty in adapting to workplace, (v) inadequate stress and time management skills, and (vi) a lack of hands-on experience. The study also indicated that many of the interviewees are less satisfied with the performance of their respective universities. The accounting graduates expect their courses to emphasize more on the practicality instead of the theoretical aspects. It is suggested training could be provided to the newly hired accounting graduates to reduce their early employment problems. On the other hand, university should make internship compulsory for accounting students to provide them with real work life experience before they are hired. The findings of this study provide an insight to the education providers to enable them to develop more effective accounting curriculum to produce better-equipped graduates for the job market.
Ahmed, U., Isa, N. M., Majid, A. H. A., Zin, M. L. M., & Amin, B. M. (2017). Towards understanding work engagement: can HR really buffer HR? Test of a moderated model. International Journal of Economic Research, 14(20), 1-18.
Ahmed, U., Majid, A. H. A., & Zin, M. L. M. (2016). HR Moderating HR: Critical link between Developmental HR Practices and work engagement in a Moderated Model. Management Review: An International Journal, 11(2), 4-22.
Ahmed, U., Umrani, W. A., Qureshi, M. A., & Samad, A. (2018). Examining the links between teachers support, academic efficacy, academic resilience, and student engagement in Bahrain. International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences, 5(9), 39-46.
Azahar, W. (2017). Over a third of Malaysian fresh graduates quit first job in less than a year. Human Resources.
Aziz, H. (2018). Graduate skills gap. News Strait Time. Retrieved from
Chiew, S. (2018). Do universities prepare students enough for their first jobs? The Edge Singapore.
Courtis, J. K., & Zaid, O. A. (2002). Early employment problems of Australian accounting graduates: An exploratory study. Accounting Forum, 26(3), 320 339.
Dean, P.C. & Campbell, J. (2010). What do companies expect of accounting major? Review of Higher Education and Self-Learning, 3(7), 101-106.
Falcone, S. (2016). Linking Education and Employment: Certificate Programs at US Institutions 1980 – 2013. Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice, 16(3) 2016, 57-73.
Gericke, S. (2017), Now what? Problems graduates encounter in the workplace. University Pretoria News. Retrieved from
http://ojs.aishe.org/index.php/aishe-j/article/viewFile/335/553 [Assessed 3 February 2019]
International Education Standard (IES) 2, Initial Professional Development – Technical Competence (Revised), International Accounting Education Standards Board.
International Education Standard (IES) 3, Initial Professional Development – Professional Skills (Revised), International Accounting Education Standards Board.
Kasriel, S. (2018). Young Workers No Longer Get the On-the-Job Training They Need -- So They're Finding It Elsewhere. Entrepreneur Asia Pacific. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/314468 [Assessed 29 January 2019]
Kavanagh, M. H., & Drennan, L. (2008). What skills and attributes does an accounting graduate need? Evidence from student perceptions and employer expectations. Accounting & Finance, 48(2), 279–300.
Lee, T. H., Yap, C. S., & Yap, Tam, C. L. (2011). Stress at Work Amongst Auditors: Is There a Light at the End of the Tunnel? MAREF Review, 1(2), 1-3.
Lee, T.H., Lim, Y.M., Yap. C.S. & Ling, C. C. (2013). Audit Juniors in Malaysia: Issues and Challenges. Maref Review, 4 (2), 10-12.
Lim, Y. M., Lee, T. H., Yap, C.S. & Ling, C. C. (2016). Employability skills, personal qualities, and early employment problems of entry-level auditors: perspectives from employers, lecturers, auditors, and students. Journal of Education for Business, 91(4), 185 – 192.
Low, M., Samkin, G. & Liu, C. (2013). Accounting education and the provision of soft skills: implications of the recent NZICA CA Academic requirement changes. e-Journal of Business Education & Scholarship of Teaching, 7(1), 1-33.
Maguire, M. & Delahunt, B. (2017), Doing a Thematic Analysis: A Practical, Step-by-Step Guide for Learning and Teaching Scholars, AISHE-J, 8 (3), 3,3511- 33514. Retrieved from
Mastracchio, N. J. (2017). A Positive Look at Accounting Education. CPA Journal. Retrieved from https://www.cpajournal.com/2017/09/21/positive-look-accounting-education/ [Assessed 14 January 2019]
Pant, D. (2018). 66% of the fresh graduates think they are not job ready: Survey. People matters. Retrieved from
Pradana, A., & Salehudin, I. (2015). Work overload and turnover intention of juniors in greater Jakarta, Indonesia. The South East Asian Journal of Management, 9(2), 108-124.
Setyaningrum, D., Muktiyanto, A. & Hermawan, A.A. (2015). How Indonesian Accounting Education Provid
In-Text Citation: (Heang, Ching, Mee, & Huei, 2019)
To Cite this Article: Heang, L. T., Ching, L. C., Mee, L. Y., & Huei, C. T. (2019). University Education and Employment Challenges: An Evaluation of Fresh Accounting Graduates in Malaysia. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 9(9), 1061–1076.
Copyright: © 2019 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode