In Selangor, they are just not that desperate for work

SHAH ALAM, MAY 24 - It is 11am, and there is no one manning the counter.

The trickle of job-hunters that began a couple of hours ago has stopped and Selva Raj is taking a break mid-way through his shift.

For four hours each Saturday in the past two months, the senior recruitment consultant for Jobstreet has been stationed at different municipal councils in Selangor, helping applicants to fine-tune their resumes and advise them on how to maximise their chances of landing that dream job.
Yes, dream job. Because it may be the middle of an economic downturn, but people have not stopped being fussy.

"Most of them only want to do one kind of job," he said. "If you ask them to go into customer service or a less professional line, they are not keen.

"They don't understand. They don't want to take a thousand to thousand-five for the time being while waiting for a permanent job," he added as he waits at his desk in the Shah Alam municipal council.

Fifteen minutes later, he was still stuck on 20 applicants for the day.

Just three weeks into the Selangor Retrenchment Hotline joint-effort by Jobstreet and the state government, some 4,081 workers had registered to fill an advertised 5,000 vacancies in the state.

But the momentum has slowed since the days Selva and his colleagues saw "more than 150" at each of four municipal councils per weekend as it appears that job-seekers are losing faith in the program.

But this seems to be because minimum wage was not what they envisioned.

One of the more curious individuals who came yesterday was a general worker in a telecommunications firm but is looking for a better payday.

"My employer is one of those underpaying the staff by using the economy as an excuse. But we've been making a profit, even last year," says the 44-year-old Malay man who only wanted to be known as SZ.

"They know in this current job market, they can say, 'take it or leave it.'"

Macross Wong is another who has decided to continue trying his luck. The 34-year-old architectural model-maker has been on Jobstreet's database since he was first retrenched four months ago.

But he is not a happy camper this morning. He was recently matched with an employer who called him back for a second interview only to tell him that his Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia qualifications were not sufficient.

"Why call me for two interviews if the deal-breaker is my academics? It is a waste of my time and petrol," he says.

Wong has been in the field for 10 years and is surviving on sub-contracted work for now. The trip from Kuala Lumpur today, up to 50km away, will not have done his fuel bill any good either.

There are many like Wong who have lost their jobs recently. Selva says that Jobstreet's database of over three million resumes has grown at an increased rate in the past six months.

But the problem, Selva explains, is that many are still not taking the advice that he has to offer.

"We tell all of them to have a summary at the end of their CVs," he says, adding that none of those who came so far has done so.

He explains that most employers do a keyword search only when looking for matches as they do not have time to sift through hundreds of thousands of resumes.

But having a summary allows a job-seeker a chance to sell himself and put forward unique skills and experiences.

It is advice that he repeats continuously each Saturday and Khairul Anwar Mustafa heard the same yesterday morning.

A recent graduate from Universiti Utara Malaysia, he failed to land a permanent job after doing his internship at a production house.

"They just couldn't afford to put any more people on the payroll. They were already letting go of contract staff," he says.

He only graduated two weeks ago but looks like someone Selva could place in a job soon.

"I will take any job for now. And if I can't get one, I'll work part-time or even start a business," the 23-year-old from Subang Jaya adds.- Malaysianinsider