The Role Of Internship In Obtaining Job Knowledge And Skills

Cognitive ability has proven to be one of the best predictors of a performance, it is commonly correlated with job performance. The most significant variable that influences the ability to obtain work position is through internship completion. Graduates who participated in internship programme portrayed more practical job knowledge than others who did not. Oftentimes, to qualify for a job that a graduate is applying for, written job knowledge test is being conducted. It is primarily used for candidate selection and other purposes are job placement and organizational advancement consideration. Applicants will be able to understand the content of the job.

Thinking and reasoning abilities: oral & written communication, analytical skills, creative thinking, computer application and along with leadership & cooperation skills are important aspects when considering job performance. The study of Muhamad, Yahya, Shahimi & Mahzan (2009) in Malaysia, discovered that interns benefited in their internship however some expectations were not met. The internship program was able to provide interns with the necessary information required by their profession. Their knowledge in public sector accounting was also enhanced. Plus, most of the interns felt that the duration of their duty was not enough for them to experience the real corporate world exposure and gain the required knowledge. Feedbacks from the employers of the graduates will determine how well job knowledge and skills was applied effectively in the work station.

From a study conducted in Riverland College, employers were said to be very satisfied with the overall job performance of the graduates. Employers were very satisfied with the qualities and skills of the graduates: the ability to understand, take directions, integrity, positive attitude towards work and customer service skills. Job skill is one of the key indicators to estimate work performance, this includes effective completion of the given task and how well an employee takes his responsibilities. Thus, the degree of employers’ satisfaction to its employees vary with the understanding of the job and skills. Interns will feel more satisfied if their work impacts the organization. Supervisor’s evaluation and feedbacks has also shown a positive connection with internship satisfaction.

Meanwhile, according to Hakim (2016), accounting academic programmes were unable to properly distribute graduates with the skills needed by their profession. This may be the reason why graduates experience education gap — students’ perceptions are far away from what they expected. Mostly, new graduates who apply for a job are ignorant with the task that they must observe inside the workplace. A discrepancy of the graduates’ performance and the demanded skills may lead to bad performance, demotivation and job dissatisfaction. Studies before had proven that employers in accounting profession were looking for employees who adds value in possessing generic skills to their technical and functional skills. These different perceptions between employers and accounting graduates seem to create expectation-performance: acquiring good grades, great personal qualities and impressive linguistics have seemed to be what accounting graduates look after. This study aims to narrow the gap between educators’ and employers’ perceptions through highlighting the need skills. The findings of this study will help educators improve its accounting program’s curriculum to meet its profession’s real demand. This will also provide additional benefits to students in improving their technical and practical skills which meets the demands of today’s industry. Student will be able to assess their weak points and help themselves improve to increase their employability. Overall, findings of this study will be considered as an insight to help educators in preparing training programs to their students.

In reality, employers expect too much from the graduates to be prepared in all circumstances resulting in an expectation-performance gap. It has been proven by Brui and Porter (2010) that employers have different perceptions from students. Most employers highlight the significance of generic attributes to have a successful career while students focus more on acquiring good grades. These may solve the problem about job mismatch and unemployment crisis among accounting graduates: they are not prepared to enter the real working industry and were unaware of the employers’ demanded skills. It is impossible that graduates could possess all the demanded skills upon graduation. Therefore, employers should understand that learning is a process and most of the generic skills they require from a graduate can only be developed in internship programme.