School: Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies (GSAPS)<\/p>\n
Gender: Male<\/p>\n
Country: USA<\/p>\n
Graduated in September 2015\/ Started Work in November 2015<\/p>\n
Job Offers: Manufacturing & Chemical Industries<\/p>\n
Reasons for Seeking Employment in a Japanese Corporation<\/strong> Job-Hunting Period<\/strong> Number of Industries & Companies Approached<\/strong> Ways\/ Methods of Job-Hunting<\/strong> Challenges Faced During Job-Hunting<\/strong> Japanese Language<\/strong> Message to International Students Planning to Job-Hunt in Japan<\/strong><\/p>\n Simply, don’t give up. Job-hunting in Japan is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Even if you aren’t able to get a job offer from your initial first choice, your dreams and wants will change over the course of job-hunting as you learn more about companies as well as yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" School: Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies (GSAPS) Gender: Male Country: USA Graduated in September 2015\/ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2602,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[135],"class_list":["post-2873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other-en","tag-voice-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/career\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/career\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/career\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/career\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/career\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2873"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/career\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2874,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/career\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2873\/revisions\/2874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/career\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/career\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/career\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/career\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\na. Wanted to utilize degree from domestic university and knowledge of Japanese language and culture
\nb. Wanted to try working in a country other than home country
\nc. Current domestic environment which is increasingly receptive to foreign employees<\/p>\n
\nFrom end of 2014 to September 2015<\/p>\n
\nPre entry \u2013 80 Entry – about 40 Interviews \u2013 15-20 companies<\/p>\n
\nFocused on career events\/recruiting events for international students. I also used recruiting firms that specialize in helping foreign students. I met the company that I ultimately decided to join the on-campus talks (in English) organized by the Career Center. It was a great opportunity because compared to the talks on campus in Japanese, there was a much greater chance to be able to ask the questions you personally want to ask and make a lasting impression on recruiters. In my case, I was the only person who visited the first English session.This was a unique opportunity that allowed me to make a personal connection with the recruiter, which ultimately ended up in a job offer from the company.<\/p>\n
\nOf course, Japanese was a large challenge. Besides that, I think the difference in job-hunting between my home country and Japan was very hard to adapt to. The mindset and expectations are completely different. People often say job-hunting is like love. If we follow this analogy, job-hunting in America is like dating, while job-hunting in Japan is like marriage. In short, students and companies are usually thinking long term, and therefore both students and companies make a lot of effort to find the perfect match.<\/p>\n
\nJapanese ability is simply crucial. However, don’t be discouraged if your Japanese isn’t business level at the start of job-hunting, Through the process, your Japanese will improve a lot naturally. Also I firmly believe that your character and motivations are more important than just Japanese language level. Of course, most of your job-hunting activities will be in Japanese, so you will be at a disadvantage without top notch Japanese skills.<\/p>\n