Students with banking and finance degrees are worried about their job prospects as banks have tended to cut their workforces amid worsening business results.
According to a survey on financial and banking human resource supply and demand implemented by Institute of Manpower, Banking & Finance (BTCI) and Hay Group, Vietnam would have around 32,000 additional financial and banking graduates in 2013, however, just 20,000 are likely to be recruited by a financial and banking institutions. Meanwhile, the rest are likely to face a high risk of unemployment or do jobs that are not related to their degree.
Students with banking and finance degrees are worried about their job prospects
The country is likely to see roughly 13,000 banking and finance students unemployed in the next four years, the survey said.
Studying abroad is a priority
A senior manager of Vietcombank said parents often wanted their children to study “hot” majors such as banking, finance, accounting or business administration. However, given the current difficult situation, banks have had to slash recruitment because many of them were unable to even pay their staff wage bills.
A recent recruitment programme by Vietcombank’s branch in HCM City attracted more than 1,000 applications for just 30 positions. Most of people who were recruited are graduates with a master’s degree from abroad, while the remainder were graduates from some big local universities.
The Vietcombank official said, “Students who are trained abroad have much better language and soft skills compared to those studying locally.”
Skills and experience prioritised, not degrees
According to a deputy director of human resources at a commercial bank in HCM City the bank would only offer jobs to replace current staff vacancies. Banks were tending not to open new branches. Many banks wanted to cut the staff numbers, in contrast to their previous recruitment plans.
“It would be a waste of time and money for pupils and their parents not to select degrees which offer job prospects, but to just focus on trendy courses such as banking, business administration and accounting is a mistake. Graduates would face the risk of being unemployed,” he added.
A degree in banking, business administration and accounting was previously considered an advantage, but students who graduated with law and social science degrees could also apply for banking positions.
“It is important that candidates have skills, not just degrees in a particular subject,” he said.
Nguyen Thi Van Anh, Managing Director of Navigos Search, said recruitment requirements for banking, accounting and business administration were among the strictest of all subjects. Therefore, students who had experience and real knowledge as well as good communication skills would have a better chance of being employed rather than new graduates.
