Indonesian Vocational Students Gain Interview Skills Through University Training

Recognizing the persistent challenge of unemployment among vocational school graduates, a team of lecturers from the Faculty of Psychology at YARSI University conducted a specialized training program for 47 students at SMKN 39 Jakarta. The initiative focused on preparing students for job interviews and instilling professional ethics, aiming to bridge the gap between technical skills and the demands of the modern workplace.

Official statistics from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) as of February 2025 highlight the critical issue: vocational high school (SMK) graduates recorded the highest national unemployment rate at 9.01%. This figure surpasses that of general high school (SMA) graduates (7.05%) and university graduates (5.25%), despite SMK programs being designed for direct entry into the workforce.

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Many SMK students actually have good technical skills, but they fail at the interview stage because they have never received adequate preparation and simulation experience. This training is here to fill that gap.

Sari Zakiah Akmal, head of the community service team from YARSI's Psychology Faculty, explained that many SMK students possess strong technical abilities but falter during interviews due to insufficient preparation in soft skills. "Many SMK students actually have good technical skills, but they fail at the interview stage because they have never received adequate preparation and simulation experience. This training is here to fill that gap," she stated.

The full-day training session covered interview processes, strategies for answering questions using the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result), mock interviews with immediate feedback, and essential soft skills and workplace ethics. Evaluation results demonstrated a significant increase in participants' self-readiness, rising from an average of 3.48 to 4.29 on a 5-point scale. Knowledge about job interviews also improved by 11.5 percentage points, with participants rating the training highly and finding the STAR method particularly impactful. Sari noted that increased self-confidence was a frequently cited benefit, crucial for mitigating interview anxiety and enhancing performance.

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Increased self-confidence is one of the most frequently mentioned impacts by students. This is important, because research shows that anxiety during interviews is directly related to decreased candidate performance.