Inspiring young talent at University Putra Malaysia

November 13th, 2019, Petaling Jaya – HT Consulting (HTC) recently had the honour of being invited by the faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology at University Putra Malaysia to give its students an introduction to the industry’s expectations of fresh graduates joining the workforce.

Sharing their experience with 70 enthusiastic students and lecturers at the industry talk were Vanessa Tan, Deputy CEO and Jimmy Ng, Technical Director.

Vanessa initiated the talk with an introduction to HTC and its active involvement in nurturing the talent bank of the Malaysian ICT industry over the last 30 years.

“Our company culture has always been very deeply rooted in nurturing local talent because we want to do our part in building a robust talent bank that can effectively support our Malaysian economy in the areas of technology and innovation,” she said.

She also highlighted that in 2018, the ICT Industry had contributed about RM250 billion to the national economy – which is a significant 20 percent of the national GDP, therefore illustrating that the industry is offering many opportunities to fresh graduates who have majored in the relevant fields.

While students are often aware of the importance of demonstrating soft skills in the workplace, however Vanessa took the opportunity to expound on the top 5 most sought after soft skills by employers, what it means to possess these skills and how best to apply and demonstrate them – beginning with resume writing, attending interviews and eventually joining the workforce.

Jimmy, a veteran of the industry with over 30 years of experience, spoke about the importance of mastering Computer Science fundamentals in school, to serve as a solid foundation for design, analysis and development work of real-world applications. He advised the students to particularly pay more attention to subjects such as Operating Systems, Data Structures, and Algorithms.

“To write good and efficient codes, you will have to think about the problem first,” he told the young hopeful students.

During his talk, he also included several sample codes in his presentation and challenged them to identify “bugs” in the code. He later revealed parts of the code that would not work in a production environment and further shared other efficient ways to design and code.

“Writing real-world applications is not like writing an assignment in university. In the real world, computer scientists must look at themselves as beyond a coder and think out of the box,” he added.

The students who attended the talk took the opportunity to converse personally with Vanessa and Jimmy later that evening.

“The speakers have given valuable insights on what to expect when we enter the workforce. It is important to take note of them when we apply for jobs,” said a student who had attended the talk.

Vanessa was very encouraged by the students’ keenness to learn from the industry and looks forward to fostering closer ties with the faculty and its students in the future.

HT Consulting is passionate about helping companies leverage technology as a strategic tool to remain competitive and achieve unprecedented growth. We believe in building relationships for the long-term, ensuring your business’s stability despite economic uncertainties and to always deliver works of quality to the satisfaction of our customers. The success of our company is a testament of how our team interacts with each other and with our customers since our beginnings in 1989.