Many reports have shown that the basic salary of fresh graduates in Malaysia to be low or not high enough. Even more fresh graduates blame their employers for not paying them enough to support their lifestyle. Some say the growth has not been fast enough versus the cost of property. Well, truth is, majority of these fresh grads are not looking at buying their properties anyway. They are looking to buy goods to make them feel proud of themselves. Truth is, how many of these fresh graduates would be earning high salaries in the future? 50% of them? 40% of them? 20% of them? Well, after having worked for the past 16 plus years after my first degree, I can safely tell you that maybe up to 20% but that’s about it. Organisations are all like a pyramid. Very few would actually rise to the top. You may need 500 technicians, supervised by 50 supervisors who in turn report indirectly to 10 Engineers whom themselves report to 3 Managers who would then have a General Manager on top. Who amongst these would qualify to be earning very good salary? If you consider 5 figure monthly salary to be a respectable pay, then only the General Manager may be earning this. So, what happened to all the fresh grads who graduated and wanted high pay? Well, some said their company mistreated them, some said the pay is too low for them to survive, some said their universities never equipped them with the right skills and some would just say Malaysia’s salary is way too low, I must go overseas. Great news, Malaysian passport qualifies us to go to majority of any country we would want to go.
It’s easy to blame but it’s never because we are still the same. Imagine having graduated and started working and every day in and day out and year after year, we do almost the same thing. Never read more about the world. Never understand about investment options. Hates insurance people. Honestly, are all these factors to be blamed more than us / we / you / ourselves? Fresh grads pay are low. Please do google online and tell me any country in this world where the pay of fresh grads are very high and they are very happy. America? UK? Australia or even our neighbour Singapore? Starting low is the norm but continue to be low, now that’s a sin on our part. Did we somehow scrape enough to further our studies for a relevant Master Degree? Did we work harder than everyone else? Did we waste time watching addictive Korean dramas or did we attend free seminars to spark our mind to think bigger and wider? Once sparked, did we invest more time, effort and money to start benefitting from it?
Yes, this article is aimed at fresh graduates. When we have worked hard enough but did not get the deserved promotion, guess what, we would be appreciated in other companies because of the new skills you have learnt. If other companies did not appreciate it, then there’s no wonder why our current company also did not promote us, right? We learnt the wrong things. When we have learnt a lot and still make mistakes, it meant that soon we would start to make less mistakes and more money. Google the famous personalities you like, how many of them suddenly become successful without much work? Haha. If they did, that meant they were lucky, that’s all. Oh yeah, luck follows those who work hard. Opportunities open up to those who really look HARD. Other than that, well, we can continue to blame everything and everyone else. I think we would continue to be, well, the same for a very long time to come. Happy working and learning, to all of us.
written on 29 Nov 2014
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