Who are the favorite future employees for Taiwan’s enterprises? The results of the yearly survey conducted by the Cheers magazine reveal for the ninth time consecutively that TKU graduates are considered to be the most preferable recruits among those from all the private universities, and the 8th when all public and private universities combined.
This particular survey started in 1997 and 10 years onwards has proved itself to be fairly reliable. For nine of the 10 years, TKU has been voted by more than 1,000 enterprises the favorite among private universities, a consistent result TKU is very proud of. This year 1,600 questionnaire were sent out, with 370 completed and sent back (23.13%); analyses of those returned show that the National Cheng Kung University top the list of all categories and universities combined, while the National Taiwan University graduates beat others with their leadership and global vision quality. The chief editor, Wu Wan-yu of Cheers understands the timing of the publication of their analyses, as she points out that this is the time companies and enterprises are recruiting people. These results will certainly give those universities that came out top in the survey a boost, and she says that, in this regard, TKU has nothing to worry about.
In particular, TKU graduates fare best in the Finance sector. They rank third among all the universities, closely behind National Cheng Chi University and National Taiwan University. This result is an indication that the two Colleges of Business and Management have become extremely competitive, considering the limited resources private universities are endowed with from the government. Despite this, TKU even surpasses some national universities in categories, such as manufacturing, high-tech and services.
What makes TKU graduates stand out? According to the survey, they are regarded as good in team spirit, stamina, willing to learn, creative and adaptable. However, the same survey also suggests that they are weak in professional knowledge and skills, global vision, foreign language proficiency and problem solving ability. In responding to these results, President Flora Chang reminds students to strengthen their weakness without losing the edge they have over others.
Dr. Kao Po-yuan, the Vice President of the Administrative Affairs, also commented last week at the press conference given by the Cheers that TKU is honored to have won this recognition and is thus determined to increase measures to improve TKU’s weaknesses such as the implementation of compulsory foreign language proficiency tests for all graduates and even requirement of good PE grades. On the other hand, advice from the enterprise was wrapped up by the followings: “Tamkang is strong in its liberal academic environment, which we indeed appreciate. If TKU can continuously improve its students as regards to their global vision and professional know-how, TKU graduates will be even more competitive.” (~ Ying-hsueh Hu )
