Have not heard of that requirement before. Maybe you are not an MSC status company?

To be fair, from my personal experience (we hire a number of foreign grads ourselves) - the government do issue out EP (employment pass) to foreign students who came right out of school with the condition

• they have minimum Bach Degree
• they have working experience (even internships here and there is good enough)
• their min salary is set at RM2.5k

If the employer has MSC status - is best as you can go direct to MDeC to help you with the application. They are super efficient in this and really are one of the best benefit you get after getting MSC status. Going through immigration directly yourself is a PAINFUL process (which i went through and wished non have to go through). [TIP: if dont have MSC status, you might want to try out TalentCorp as they might also be able to help] 

With regards to negative mentality on VC's - This may hold true maybe 5 to 10 years ago. But now i personally dont see it happening. 

With regards to over reliance of Govt Grants - what happens after a company gets the grant, to me, is more important metric to track. I do know of quite a number of company that blooms after these grants. So i guess it's not all that bad

Hence some of us have to resort to hiring foreigners to bridge the gap