10 UNIMY final-year students get job offers from Dell

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 23  -- University Malaysia of Computer Science and Engineering (UNIMY) saw10 of its students who participated in the Dell Malaysia Hack2Hire challenge hired by the company upon their internship completion at Dell.

Dell Digital senior director and Dell Cyberjaya general manager, TS Koay said that Hack2Hire, a new approach by the company to hire university graduates into the Dell IT Development Programme, groomed graduates to work as IT professionals while simultaneously undergoing a two-year on-the-job training.

“This includes the development of technical skills, soft skills and leadership competencies. They will also have the opportunity to rotate into different jobs that support their career paths and choices to grow within the IT organisation.

“This is while being provided with a platform to socialise, innovate and contribute to social communities through corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects and external activities.

“During Hack2Hire, the participants were given business problems to solve. The problem statement for sessions where UNIMY students participated was to develop a machine learning algorithm recommendation engine for all possible machine learning models for a given business dataset and user needs,” he told Bernama in an interview recently.

Meanwhile, UNIMY head of Industry Engagement & Graduate Employability (IEGE), Nalena Balachandran in a separate interview said that fresh university graduates were at a slight disadvantage because the technology industry in Malaysia was always looking for experienced employees who had worked for at least a few years.

“A study by Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) has shown that digital technology job availability in Malaysia has tripled, but yet, employers are, for the most part, looking at those who’ve had at least a few years of experience in the industry.

“This is where IEGE comes in to close the gap between the industry and fresh graduates’ experience. One of our initiatives, ‘Industry Into the Classroom’, provides students with real-time projects given by the industry, where it’s linked to the subject of a class,” she said.

Two of the 10 graduates newly hired by Dell, Abdul Muhaimin Hashim and Pang Lin Khai said their time at UNIMY taught the importance of effective communication and teamwork, which were heavily applied during their internship and subsequent employment with Dell.

-- BERNAMA