BSMH 3153 CAREER MANEGEMENT

1.0 Introduction
Career path is a resource that has been designed to help someone to identify the skills
and abilities and then react with their current job. So that, we decide to conduct an interview
with UUM lecturer, Dr Wan Shakizah bt Wan Mohd Noor to obtain some details about her
career path before this until she holds her current position as an academician. She starts her
primary schools at Sekolah Kebangsaan Stella Mariss, Perlis and Sekolah Berasrama Penuh
Syed Putra. After that, she decided to continue her studies taking Diploma in Business
Studies at UiTM Arau, and Degree in Bachelor Degree in Business Administration and lastly
she gets her doctoral graduate from Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western
Australia. In UUM, she teaches various courses in human resource and management
disciplines and also involved in research in that area. In this assignment, we highlights some
important points regarding the career path which are the particulars of job, the skills and
abilities that need to perform the task and also the challenges that she have faced to sustain
her career and will be discussed as follows.
2.0 Organization Background
University Utara Malaysia is a management based university located in Sintok,
Kedah. The vision of this university is to become an Eminent Management University and
the mission is to be a consistently pre-eminent center of academic excellence in teaching and
learning, research, consultancy, and publication in the field of management, and, at the same
time, to bring forth highly competent human capital that is committed to serving in the
development of the nation and all humanity. UUM have three (3) academic colleges which
are College of Government, Law and International Studies (COLGIS), College of Arts and
Science (CAS), and College of Business (COB). Since our respondent is from COB, we will
focus on COB that has multi colleges and one of them is School of Business Management.

BSMH 3153 CAREER MANEGEMENT

3.0 HR Department Chart
Dean
Prof Dr Rushami Zien Yusoff
Secretary
Cik Farah Shida
Ahmad

Deputy Dean
Prof Madya Dr Salniza Md
Salleh

Head of Marketing
Department

Head of Human Resource

Department

Dr Hasnizam Shaari

Prof Madya Dr Faizuniah

Pangil

Head of
Entrepreneurship
Department
Dr Fais Ahmad

Coordinator

Coordinator

(Bachelor Degree)

(Post Graduates)

Dr Mohd Faizal Mohd Isa

Dr Johanim Johari

BSMH 3153 CAREER MANEGEMENT

4.0 RESPONDENTS CAREER PATH

HR
GENERALIS
T
(1991-1993)

HR OFFICER
(1993-1998)

SENIOR
LECTURER OF
HUMAN
RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
(Now)

HR SENIOR
OFFICER
(1998-1999)

LECTURER OF
HUMAN
RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
(1999)

Diagram 1: Respondent Traditional Career Path

Referring to her career history, it can classify as traditional career path. This type of career
path is chosen as respondent through a variety of different career path for a few years until
her recent career of being a Senior Lecturer (DG52). According to Paula McDonald, Kerry
Brown and Lisa Bradley (2005), characterized the traditional career by vertical success,
climbing the corporate pyramid and monetary reward and progression was also based on
frequent upward moves entailing geographical mobility.

5.0 CAREER HISTORY

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BSMH 3153 CAREER MANEGEMENT

5.1 SHINCA SDN.BHD
Firstly, she works with SHINCA SDN.BHD in 1991 located in Jitra Kedah. This
company is fully own Tan Dato Seri Vincent Tan Chee Yioun. The companys head quarter
located at Bayan Lepas, Pulau Pinang and focusing on telecommunication services. The
company runs business of electronics appliances and accessories as well as computer
equipment and software with 300 employees. As fresh graduates and starting salary point is
RM 1600, she has been introduced to HR aspect which she never came across before this.
She had been appointed as HR Officer who requires being knowledgeable and know-how to
implement it even though she was graduated in BBA minoring in Marketing.

In

strengthening her KSAOs, she needs to well-versed in providing support in the various
important HR functions and employee counseling. As a HR officer, she also needs to provide
advice and assistance to supervisors and staff on training needs and opportunities, job
descriptions, performance reviews and personnel policies. She is a talkative person and it
suits with HR officer when dealing with people.

5.2 RITRITE (M) SDN BHD

In 1993, Dr Wan Shakizah decided to contribute her services at RITRITE (M) SDN
BHD, which is located at Prai, Penang and their service is in magnetic slider area. She starts
her services as an HR Officer, grade E4 and she has the responsibilities to manage the
Employees Relation. She has to in-charged about the clinic in-house, cafeteria,
transportation, and others that related with the employees. She also need to expert with the
buses pick up point for every employee and manage 50 buses for employees and she must to
ensure that the schedule is smoothly and can pick up the employees during their working
shift. She is also good in predicting something, especially numbers and because of that the
boss asks her to manage compensation and benefit but she still has to manage the ER section.
In 1995, she has been promoted as Senior Officer, Grade E5 because she has
contributed a lot in order to develop the company. One of her contribution for the company is
manual route bus book for every employee and produces something that everyone can access
with it even though when she is not around. In 1997, she has been promoted as Executive
Officer, Grade E7 and the big challenge that she had faced is she has to work 24 hours with
no rest or holiday because every day she has to solve the problem of the company and also
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BSMH 3153 CAREER MANEGEMENT

their employees. She cannot take a leave even in a day to spend with her family because the
boss wants her to solve and entertain the employees and company problem.
While in this company, the career model that involved in her career path is the ladder.
This can be proved when she is being promoted from lower level position that is HR Officer
to Senior Officer, and then to the higher level position that is Executive Officer. This model is
a process designed to progress and advancing an employee to a higher classification with a
higher level of job responsibility (Pinnelas County, 2015).

5.3 ASIAN DRIVESHAFT MALAYSIA SDN.BHD

Dr. Wan Shakizah has worked in Asian Driveshaft Malaysia Sdn.Bhd from 1998 until
1999 and located in Perai, Penang. She possess as a Section Head of Compensation Benefit in
E10 level. She have a good interpersonal and communication skills and able to maintain her
confidentially related to HR system and excellent in Microsoft application. She is well
organized person, strong work ethic, responsible and able to deliver under pressure and
committed to meet deadlines and objectives. In addition, she was given the task to take care
of employee relations and she had to do all the work related to human resources practices.
Furthermore, when she worked here, the state of the country is still in recession.
5.4 CURRENT CAREER PATH IN UUM
Due to the encouragement given by her father in ensuring their children become an
educator, respondent has been considering to be involved in education field. After many years
she served with the manufacturing industry, she noticed something new in profession of
education even her past career is in manufacturing. She chooses HR Management as her new
career because of her experiences. Upon her graduation in Master in Business Administration,
she subsequently decided to apply for a position of a lecturer in UUM Sintok, Kedah and be a
lecturer specialized in HR Management. Her career as a lecturer desperately need her to have
a great knowledge of managing and showing the strength characteristic and willing to
complete the theory with skills aligned with current demands. In addition, respondent also
required being professional and concentrating on teaching and learning in a classroom. With
her first step in the education sector, she had gone through several stages in promotion
starting from Grade DS45 up to DS52 of her grades at this time.

BSMH 3153 CAREER MANEGEMENT

In turn, in the year 2005, the government has urged educator in higher education
institutions to upgrade their academic qualifications if they wish to continue their career in
another field. As a result of these demands, respondent continued her studied in doctorial
level at Curtin University of Technology, Perth Australia in HR Management. During her
studies, she still holds a position as a lecturer but the university is providing convenience to
her to take sabbatical leave and fully funded by the university for 1 year. Shortly after
graduate in doctoral level, she went back to Malaysia and continued her research study on the
remuneration and compensation. Starting in 2013, she continued to be promoted to the
position of Senior Lecturer (DS52) until now.
CAREER MODEL

Senior Lecturer of Human

Resource Management (2013)

Lecturer of Human Resource

Management (1995)

BSMH 3153 CAREER MANEGEMENT

6.0 Conclusion
In conclusion, we can highlight that our respondent have a flexible line of movement
in managing her career path from the starting point until she deserve to be professional
managers and academician. Other than that, she also has a similar background of studies that
synchronized with her career which is human resource and management field. From the
output of interview, we are able to point up that her career is more to network career path
where she need to fulfill some knowledge and enough experience to be a senior lecturer in
UUM. It also perceives some knowledge interchangeable at certain stages and numerous
experiences at one level needed before being promoted to next level of job.

7.0 References
McDonald,.P, Brown,.K & Bradley,.L (2005). Have traditional career paths given way to
Protean ones?. Career Development Internationally, Vol. 10 Iss. 2, pp. 109-129
Pinnelas County. (2015). Career ladder. Retrieved from
https://www.pinellascounty.org/.../compensation-topics on December 12, 2015.
8.0 Appendix

BSMH 3153 CAREER MANEGEMENT

Picture 1: With our respondent