Job reality during internship of LHU English majors

In 1997, Lac Hong University LHU established the Faculty of English Language, and so far the Department has enrolled totally 19 courses, and 15 courses have done the internships, gaining

LAC HONG UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE

RESEARCH REPORT

Student: NGUYEN THI VAN ANH Supervisor: Mr TRAN VO THANH TUNG (M.A.)

Job reality during internship of lhu english majors

CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Background of the study 1

2 Purposes 2

3 Significance of the study 2

4 Research question 2

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 3

1 The importance of English language nowadays 3

2 Job opportunities of an English major 4

3 The requirements of recruiters towards employees nowadays 6

4 Faculty of English Language in Lac Hong University 7

5 Internship 8

5.1 What is internship? 8

5.2 Internship significance 9

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURE 12

1 Aims and objective 12

2 Participant 12

3 Research approach 12

3.1 Instruments for data collection 12

3.1.1 Questionnaire to students 12

3.1.2 Interview of recruiters 13

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 14

1 Questionnaire to students 14

1.1 Internship status of students 14

1.2 Evaluation of students about their internship and the university’s curriculum 21

2 Interview with recruiters 26

2.1 The requirement of recruiters toward employees 26

2.2 Most important skills 27

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 28

1 Main conclusion of this study 29

2 Limitation 30

3 Recommendations 31

3.1 Recommendation for students 31

3.2 Recommendation for the university 31

REFERENCES 32

APPENDICES 35

My deepest gratitude goes to my instructor, Mr Tran Vo Thanh Tung for all his guidance, supports, critical advices as well as his encouragement during the time I did my research, despite being always busy with his schedule

Besides, I wish to send my sincere to all teachers at English Department who have taught

me devotedly Also, I would like to assert my gratefulness to students from 15AV111, 15AV112, and 15AV113 as well as Human resources managers from Sacom Corporation, Elite Joint Stock Company and Fashion Garmnet Co.ltd for willingly joining this study and contributing to the success of my research I value the assistance they provided with the data collection

Last but not least, I really appreciate my family and friends supporting, encouraging and caring about me during the whole time I was carrying out this research

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Background of the study

Nancy O’Neill (2010) wrote that an internship which happens in a short period of time

is an opportunity offered by an employer to usually undergraduates or senior students Normally, an internship can last between a month and three months Coco (2002) stated, internships with the emphasis firmly on training give students opportunity to gain real-life experience of the workplace and field they hope to get into, which not only helps interns gain practical skills and decide if the career they are experiencing is suitable for them, but also enables them to make contacts with recruiters to get the security for a job and

“climbing the first rung on the career ladder”, said in an internship journal of Wikijob According to Mr Trinh Minh Tan (2015), understanding the great advantages of internship program, colleges and universities in Vietnam have offered internship programs, which are carried out at least two months after students are trained and get fully expertise knowledge

as well as already mentally prepared for working in a professional environment This internship program is an important factor to not only the university and students but also

to the enterprises

In 1997, Lac Hong University (LHU) established the Faculty of English Language, and

so far the Department has enrolled totally 19 courses, and 15 courses have done the internships, gaining practical experience to make significant contribution to the social economic development of the Southeast region in particular and of the whole country in general However, up to now, there has been no research conducted to reflect the internship situation of students as well as their expectation for the program; therefore, to better understand the situation, I decide to carry out an investigation into job reality during internship of English majors in LHU

2 Purposes

Based on the indicators of employment rate, income, promotion, and integration ability, this study provides the information about the senior students’ status after finishing their academic learning and provides readers an overview of current career circumstance of students in their internship

3 Significance of the study

The study, of which the purpose is to obtain the job status of senior students, is very important since the information provided by senior students will greatly contribute to the evaluation of the effectiveness of the university curriculum as well as provide useful information about future career to English majors Through that, the University will have more scientific bases to support students during their internships and adjust the content of the training program to meet the increasing needs of recruiters and job market

4 Research question

1 What is the percentage of LHU English majors having an official job during their internships?

2 Which fields do their jobs belong to?

3 Beside school knowledge, what else do interns need to equip themselves with to increase their job opportunities?

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 The importance of English language nowadays

Shaik Riyaz Ahmad (2016)stated thatEnglish is the way to get better education and employment opportunities “English language plays a crucial role to weave the world into

a single thread”, she said English is the second language in almost all countries Besides United Kingdom, 60 out of 196 countries see English as their official language, said by Thanh Binh (2015) He also mentioned that English, which is the official language used in European Union, the United Nations, the NATO, the European Free Trade Association and many national organizations and alliance, sis used in global diplomacy According to Phung Van Minh (2015), in today globalization, along with the development of technology, medicine, engineering and Education and etc, English language is now playing the most important role Said by Ms Dinh Thị My Le (2018), English now became indispensable Most Internet contents and programs are using English as the main display language Not only is English used in science term, but it is also used in all fields Phung Van Minh (2015) stated that in a developing country like Vietnam, since most people are aware of the significance of English language in finding a good job, communicating with the outside world, or accessing the scientific resources, the language has been taught very early not only in secondary or high schools but also in universities and colleges which are now having many subjects taught in English as well as setting the standard of foreign language output for graduates

Rajathurai Nishanthi (2018) defined that companies or organizations consider English

an importance factor in recruitment They will decide whether an employee is hired or not after checking his or her English ability International companies expect employees to fluently communicate in English and usually consider their staff well educated if they are good English speakers, writers, readers and listeners English is the dominant business language and it has become a must for people to speak English if they are to enter the global workforce In Airbus, Daimler Fast Retailing, Nokia, Renault, Samsung, SAP, Technicolor,

and Microsoft in Beijing-global companies, English is their official corporate language Said by Ms Dinh Thị My Le (2018), if a person has strong English communication ability,

he or she can have higher opportunity in getting good job Many employers today make English their priority in finding employees For instance, it is impossible for a graduate who would like to have the opportunity to work in a hotel or a good resort with high salary and dynamic and stable working environment when the graduate does not know how to communicate in English Although for students, it is challenging to master English, it is the key to help graduates be more successful in the future, improve themselves and develop their career

According to Nguyen Thi Thu Ha (2017), when a person is good at foreign languages, especially English, it is an advantage and opportunity to work in large enterprises For instance, fresh graduates with excellent expertise knowledge but bad English skills can fail

in their job interviews This is really a regrettable thing, but it can help indicate the importance of English nowadays Good English competence is always a remarkable edge when applying for a job and when working It can be said that English is an indispensable ticket for anyone who wishes to assert themselves in the integration period

2 Job opportunities of an English major

In the journal “English majors, there’s no worry about unemployment” of the Young newspaper, Tran Huynh (2018), the author quoted the speech of Mr Tang Huu Tan - head

of the admissions committee of Ton Duc Thang University, about English majors that there are now many universities offering English language training In particular, each school has the strength to train a specialization of this industry including translation, English teaching and Business English Regarding the current English language curriculum, most universities or colleges have the same basic curriculum, but the output orientation of students in each school may be different Students studying English language will be equipped with expertise knowledge like politics, ethic, professional and health qualities and soft skills such as communicating, presenting, analyzing, solving problems, and

working in groups, which enable them to work effectively in English-specific professional fields With the knowledge provided, new graduates from English major can work as translators or interpreters in different organizations like diplomatic agencies, media agencies, publishers, book publishing centers, newspapers, magazines or other economic social organizations, Moreover, English majors can be media specialists, event organizers, secretaries, assistants, and etc in foreign companies Furthermore, they can work in travel agencies, hotels and restaurants as tour guides or consultants, in universities, colleges, vocational schools, high schools, or foreign language centers as teachers of English Also mentioned in this article, Dr Tang Huu Tan said that English major offers the diversity in job opportunities There are very few graduates in this major unemployed However, Dr Tan also stated that besides academic knowledge, students need to equip themselves with soft skills to easily seize the chance in getting attractive jobs after graduation

In accordance to Economic and Distributional Impacts of Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership: The case of Vietnam written by Maryla Maliszewska, Zoryana Olekseyuk and Israel OsorioRodarte (2018), Vietnam has signed the CP-TPP Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership Agreement and the ASEAN Economic Community, opening up potential employment opportunities for the English Language industry, with the attractive salary favor for English Language graduates- the average of 600-900 USD / month for fresh graduated students and can be up to 2,000 USD / month for those who have experienced Mentioned in journal “Career opportunities from international languages - English major” of Gia Dinh Univesity (2019), with the advantage

of being allowed to freely work in the economic sector of 10 AEC countries, Vietnamese workforce with strong English skills will have the opportunity to access over 6,000,000 attractive jobs English language is always a competitive factor to take advantage at work, which expand the opportunity to find a job in multinational corporations or can even build self-own business model Therefore, the English Language opens up to more freedom to choose a job without narrowing down opportunities in just Vietnamese companies Fully equipped with both expertise knowledge and integration skills, students can quickly

integrate into an international environment and take on many different positions after graduating from English major

3 The requirements of recruiters towards employees nowadays

According to M.S Vu The Vu and M.S Tran Thanh Tong (2013), the requirement for the employees can be classified according to different recruitment positions For instance, working in Production - Quality - Purchasing Department, employees are expected to have organizational, managerial and professional skills Administrative-Personnel position need to be good in terms of office computing, communication, organization, communication, and personnel organization skills Marketing-Business-Customer Care positions are highly expected to have good communication, analysis, negotiation, relationship building and development skills Finally, the position of Accounting and Finance need to meet the requirement of employers in having analysis, office computing, and specialized computing skills

Moreover, in accordance to the research result of Finch, D., Nadeau, J & O’Reilly, N (2012), most employers have defined their five requirements when they recruit one employee There are soft skills such as communication, listening, teamwork skills, and professional in work which employers consider as the important factor for working in professional environment and in selecting suitable employees for their corporation showed

by Lievens and Sackett (2012) In the research about “Employers’ Perception On Soft Skills Of Graduates: A Study Of Intel Elite Soft Skill Training” of A Fairuzza Binti Hairi and partner (2011), they listedfive vital soft skills needed in the working place with the respectively descending importance, including Communication, Teamwork, Decision Making & Problem Solving, Creative & Critical Thinking and Program & Project Management skill There is a finding that a graduate having technical skills but lacking sufficient relevant soft skills will not be assured of a job; problem solving skill according

to Stiwne, E.E & Jungert, T (2010) and Wellman, N (2010), is necessary in every position

in a company which demand the abilities of decision making, analysis and generalization

Besides, according to Reid, J.R & Anderson, P.R (2012) opinion, Problem Solving skill requires the association of abilities in terms of critical thinking, management, adaptability skills Thus, Problem Solving skill is one of core criteria in recruiting employee said by Wellman, N (2010); experience is the factor that the recruiter need most of graduates Normally, employers do not require students to have expertise experience they instead need

experience accumulated from the internship, from part-time jobs said by Hopkins, C.D., Raymond, M.A & Carlson, L (2011) and Gault, J., Leach, E & Duey, M (2010) Some employers according to their perception are interested in recruiting graduates from certain reputable universities The reputation of a university and its relationship in hiring a fresh graduate is considered in three components: (1) according to Alessandri S., Yang, S & Kinsey, D (2006) and Capobianco (2009), the name of the university in the university's prestigious ranking; (2) the school's training program; (3) student learning outcomes (such

as the overall grade point average) They will affect the employment opportunities of fresh graduates However, Peter Cappelli stated that when recruiting employees who have just graduated from college or universities, the awareness of universities or knowledge in school is not the top concern of employers; they, on the contrary, concern more about the experience of part-time job, internships, even if the candidates have never taken any full-time job

4 Faculty of English Language in Lac Hong University

Department of English language formerly known as Department of Foreign language was established in 1997 The department provides the diploma of full-time, part-time and associate degree in terms of Business English English major includes four subject groups

in its curriculum, which are Skills, Literature and Country study, Business English, andLanguage Theory group The Department from the first day of foundation has two main training program in terms of Business English and English for Education, but since 2002, the Faculty of English Language has decided to fully concentrate on Business English training program At present, the Faculty takes responsibility of:

✓ Helping student master the communication of foreign language including listening, speaking, reading and writing

✓ Giving in-depth knowledge in terms of language, history, culture and literature of native speaker

✓ Providing practical skills of business, commerce, and interpretation – translation

✓ Preparing knowledge and advices for students to get international certification for instance TOEIC, IELTS, or TOEFL using for postgraduate education or professional works

The Department usually organized expertise courses with certification in terms of Business and commercial, Tourism, Interpretation and Translation and English for education Besides giving academic knowledge, the Department are in coordination with enterprises every year to support the internship of students According to admission board

of Lac Hong University Admission Department, English major graduates are able to take responsibility to professional work in Foreign affairs, cultural and diplomatic agencies and organizations; companies, resorts, hotels, restaurants; domestic and foreign companies operating in the fields of trade and business; companies, organizations operating in the field

of translation; schools, foreign language centers; media specialist, event organizer; tour guides, consultants at travel companies, travel agencies, hotels and restaurants

5 Internship

5.1 What is internship?

The Ohio State University Department of Political Science (2013) defined that

an internship is a work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time

In the research of Nancy O’Neill, director of Integrative Programs and the LEAP Campus Action Network, Association of American Colleges and Universities about Internships as

a High-Impact Practice (2010), she quoted that internship can be understood as gaining experience, which is a part of undergraduate education In another point of view, she defined internship as a supervised discipline which can be described as an intentional experiential learning strategy focusing on professional development, performance

assessments, reflection and acknowledgment Dailey, Stephanie L (2016) mentioned in their work "What Happens Before Full-Time Employment? Internships as a Mechanism of Anticipatory Socialization" that typically, an internship is the exchanging of services for experience between the intern and the organization Most people take internship to determine whether they are still interest in one field if they have real-life experience Internships give senior college students the opportunity to participate in a field of their choice in order to receive knowledge about a particular future career, and prepare them for full-time work following graduation In addition, an internship can be used to create a professional network that can assist with letters of recommendation or lead to future employment opportunities

Usually high school students, college and university students, or post graduate adult can be an intern These positions are mostly temporary with low paid or even unpaid, stated

by Perlin, Ross (2013) in "Internships": Sociology of Work

Said by Bowdoin College (2004), internships have a wide variety of industries and

settings which can be paid; unpaid; or partially paid

Recently, paid internship is growing popularity stated in the work “Internship Expectations: What an Internship Is and Is Not - Current Students and Alumni - Career Center - University of Evansville” (2017) that paid internship which usually occur during the second or third year of schooling is the way for interns to expand their knowledge both in academic studies and also at the company Getting into the internship most students are expected to bring ideas and knowledge from school into the company

5.2 Internship significance

Many researchers have listed specific benefits which students can gain from participating in internship programs According to Rutaba Adnan (2016) both interns and employee now are considering internship programs are indeed the win-win contract which can bring advantages for both sides In this competitive market, more than half of employers

in fact are now finding the best fit for their companies by providing relevant internship experience Forbes.com stated that, comparing to employees without internship, those with relevant experience from internship are better prepared and be able to meet most of employers’ requirement Moreover by using empirical research, Fang, Lee, S, Lee, and Huang (2004) and Gault, Redington, and Schlager (2000) have realized that students participating in internships receive a greater number of job offer According to Mary Anne

McNulty, Manager of Staffing and College Relations, Starwood Hotels & Resorts,

internships can allow recruiters to find and build relationships with students when they are

in academic “This builds a pool of candidates who have work experience with us and who have forged relationships with our managers”, she said

In “Internships in undergraduate finance programs: Financial Practice and Education” of Maskooki, K., Rama, D V., & Raghunandan, K (1998), the authors gave their point of view about significance of internship that an intern can put knowledge in classroom into practice, form good working habit, and get higher chances of finding employment Additionally, Coco (2000) also showed five benefits of internship, which are helping interns relate classroom concepts to practical applications, improve expertise knowledge of businesses, identify interests and career ambitions, get familiar with workplace environment, and get better in professional environment faster Cook, Parker and Pettijohn (2004) mentioned in their journal that students taking internship can enhance their interpersonal skills, relate knowledge gained from the classroom to the workplace, become more mature, achieve their career goals, and be confident in obtaining a job upon graduation

Mr Trinh Minh Tan (2015) stated that not only do students get benefits from internship program, universities and enterprises are also take significant advantage from this Through the mentoring for interns, agencies and businesses can identify the weaknesses of the training program in colleges and universities, and the practical requirements that students have not met to make comments and suggestions to the school

On that basis, universities can adjust their training programs to improve the output quality With the cooperation between universities and the enterprises, it is easier and more effective to monitor the employment situation of students after graduation and evaluate the quality of training Moreover, he also showed that in the long term, internship has a positive impact on the workforce for the industry In agencies and enterprises point of view, recruiting interns is a part of improving the quality in training the workforce in their fields According to Technology department of Maritime College (2016), internship is a recruiting way which helps businesses have opportunities to hire suitable employees that do not need too much time to retraining This helps businesses "hunt" excellent employees right from the beginning without much cost

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND

PROCEDURE

1 Aims and objective

In order to understand clearly about the status of English major senior students in Lac Hong University after they finish their academic and have the overview in job reality during their current internship and what they think about the internship, this research was conducted in July 2019 It is hope that evidence gained from participant in this research may in many ways be beneficial for the University in supporting senior students during the internship as well as improving the training program to meet the needs of job market

2 Participant

This research was done with three classes, namely class 15AV111, 15AV112 and 15AV113 with 22, 30 and 20 students respectively with male and female students with the age ranging from 22 to 24 and with recruiters from Sacom Corporation, Fashion Garment Co.ltd, and Elite Joint stock company

3 Research approach

Quantitative approach was exploited in this research to have the most persuasive and reliable data The data was collected through two main types of means The first one is a questionnaire to English majors in Lac Hong University course fifteen The second one is the interviews of recruiters in some corporations

3.1 Instruments for data collection

3.1.1 Questionnaire to students

The questions were designed as a main tool to gather data and information about internship status of students There are a total 13 English questions in the questionnaire including 8 multiple choices and 5 open ended questions By answering this questionnaire, information about job reality during internship of student course 15 will be collected

3.1.2 Interview of recruiters

In addition, interviews of employers at Sacom Corporation, Fashion Garment Co.ltd, and Elite Joint stock company were also set up with the hope of exploring what the requirement of recruiters toward fresh graduates as well as finding out that whether English majors at Lac Hong University have meet their requirement or not

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

1 Questionnaire to students

1.1 Internship status of students

Question 1: “What is your company’s address?”

Figure 1: Working places of interns

Most of the participants stay in Dong Nai province to take their internship, accounting for 58% of students Same number of interns decided to work in Binh Duong Province and Ho Chi Minh City while only 6% come back to their hometown or go to small town to get jobs Overall, choosing to work in city is the general trend of students not only since there are many industrial zones around these cities providing variety of jobs for fresh graduates but also students can have more opportunities to gain knowledge after graduation training courses

Question 2: “What form of business is the company where you do take internship?”

Figure 2: the form of students’ internship companies

It can be definitely seen from the figure 2, all of the examined senior students (100%) are employed with 92% of participants now taking internship for private enterprise due to the development of private sector in Vietnam throughout the last three years In contrast, the number of participants working for state-owned enterprise is only take about 2% and there are 5% of participants decided to take internship for their own family’s companies to gain experience before working for other corporations

93%

2%

5%

Private enterprise State-owned enterprise Family business

Question 3: “Which field does your company operate in?”

Figure 3, 4: Fields of companies

Construction material supplier Tourism

Transportation

Food processing Real Estate Others

In fact, in the globalization world, service sectors play an important role in the country economy They are one of main sectors attract mostly workforce nowadays Thus, with the English advantages, it is not surprised that more than half of senior English majors chose to work in service term Detailed in the second pie chart, 21% of the students work

in education field at English centers The percentage of participants taking their internship for construction material supplier is 7%, which is strangely higher than the number of students working in English related field like tourism 2% Transportation, and real estate have the same number of interns at 6% of students

The intern rate in textile field consume 17%, the highest percentage of students working in production sector 6% of participants decided to choose companies operating food processing A small minority of students about one or two take their internship in corporations producing foam, electronic devices, hard products, plastic products and housing furniture

Question 4: “Which department do you work in?”

Figure 5: Departments interns work in

Consulting Others

The question was explored to find out the departments most English majors choose

to work in Most students did their internship as office staff in different divisions in companies Through the chart above, it can be apparently seen that highest number of student, accounting for 30% of participants take their internship at Human Resources department Although the university have offered the courses of both Human Resources and Import-Export certificate and there have been had almost same number of enrolled students, surprisingly only 4% of participants are interns at Import-Export Department Sales, marketing and customer service department respectively has 20%, 10% and 4% of student working in In figure 4, the findings showed that education term have the highest number of students as intern, but it is not like the prediction that they will work as English teachers, instead, they are separately working as consultants, teaching assistants, or customer service staff In addition, there have been small minority of students (about 6%) decided to work in divisions not relating to their major like technology, operation or accounting department

Question 5: “Do you got paid during internship?”

Figure 6: Number of student got paid during internship program

94%

6%

Paid internship Unpaid internship