TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsPrivate university graduates start to gain ground in employment hunt
In Jakarta, private universities have been preparing graduates with soft skills and experience before graduation.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Jobseekers pack the second Job for Career event at Gelora Bung Karno sports complex in Central Jakarta. (JP/Jerry Adiguna)
W
hile alumni of state-run universities remain preferred by employers in general, the fact that startups prefer to hire graduates from private universities is a testimony to the latter’s capability to respond to new demand in the job market.
High school graduates’ enthusiasm to secure seats at state universities remains high although the number of students participating this year in both the performance-based state university entrance selection (SNMPTN) and joint entrance test for state universities (SBMPTN) was 1,193,260, a decrease from 1,446,156 students in 2018.
Indonesia is on its way toward Industry 4.0, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a technological revolution characterized by a fusion of technologies that blurs the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres. With a total of 992 startups registered, four of which are among the at least eight unicorn startups across Southeast Asia, Indonesia will inevitably need more tech-savvy human resources.
The dualism of state and private universities continues to be a major issue in the workplace. However, the “digital boom” phenomenon in the country has started to change the equilibrium, with university status starting to become irrelevant and a larger portion of private university graduates enjoying greater employment opportunities in startup companies.
According to a survey by Jakarta-based recruitment consultant Kalibrr Indonesia, there is more appetite from startup employers in hiring graduates from private universities than state ones. The survey, which was conducted between January and June 2019, questioned 400 employers – 200 startups and 200 big enterprises – in the technology and banking fields in the Greater Jakarta area.
“Based on the number of candidates who were shortlisted at either startups or enterprises, private university graduates had a bigger chance to be invited [for interview] at startup companies compared to state university graduates [2 percent vs. 1 percent],” Andrew Nugraha Patty, Kalibrr Indonesia’s marketing consultant and head of data told The Jakarta Post recently.
“For IT related jobs at startups, graduates from universities such as Binus University [24 percent], Gunadarma University [22 percent], and Telkom University [10 percent] had a bigger chance to be invited for interview compared to graduates from UI [17 percent], IPB [12 percent] or ITS [8 percent],” he said.
