

How To Get a Job in Japan. Or Anywhere. - po
http://www.makeleaps.com/blog/en/2011/07/how-to-get-a-job-in-japan-or-anywhere/

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duopixel
Well, there's also the issue of working in a foreign country legally. I wish
it weren't so much of a hurdle.

I've worked in three different countries, not much by any measure, but enough
to gain some insights:

1\. Your social value goes down the drain. Saying "I have a very popular
design blog in Spanish" means nothing to the English speaking market. Saying
you studied in a top tier university in Mexico is the same as saying you have
a high school diploma.

2\. The relevance of your previous work is undermined. Unless they're huge
international countries, they've probably never even heard about them.

3\. It's difficult to convey quality if most of the pieces in your portfolio
are in a different language than that your potential employer. Copy plays a
big part in the perception of quality.

Until I moved to Canada I had never even had to look for work. I had some
difficulty finding a good match that was willing to try me out. Fortunately I
got a small freelance project with a great company and we hit it off from
there.

If I had to do it again, I'd start by building something small but useful for
the city I'm moving to (say, a webapp to find open beer stores). This helps
you generate local value in the language of the ecosystem you are trying get
into and connects you with local devs and designers.

~~~
dabent
I'm on the opposite side of the coin. I'd love to get a job outside the US,
where I live, but I've got no idea how to handle visa issues. How did you
handle them?

My other barrier is language. I imagine I could work in England/Ireland, or
even Australia, but are there countries where an English-speaker could find
work?

~~~
duopixel
I'm a Dual Citizen of Mexico and Canada. Canada has agreements with 25
countries that allow you to work for a year in a foreign country for one year
if you are under 35:

[http://www.international.gc.ca/iyp-pij/agreements_in-
accords...](http://www.international.gc.ca/iyp-pij/agreements_in-accords-
entrant.aspx?lang=eng&view=d)

I'm not sure about US agreements with other countries, but I know that if you
have a university degree of the following list [http://www.u-s-a-
immigration.com/INS/NAFTA_Professional_Job_...](http://www.u-s-a-
immigration.com/INS/NAFTA_Professional_Job_Series_List.htm) then you are
allowed to work in Mexico and Canada.

As for only knowing English, well, it depends on the industry. Most companies
want to tackle the US market and they would see your native English as a very
good asset. But you would need to bring something else to the table (good
chops or connections, basically).

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rfrey
_And right now we’re looking for stability. We had a recent employee leave
Japan immediately after the earthquake_

I guess the employee was looking for the same thing.

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anditto
Good post, but unfortunately getting hired in Japan involves a lot more
aspects than how you answer/ask questions. For one thing, the process of
hiring "fresh college graduates" in Japan is a particular beast of its own,
rightly deserving books written about it. As a recent hire here, for the past
year I have gone through multiple gauntlets of psych exams, hand-
written/online tests, group discussions, test cases, interviews, etc. Here's
my tips to increase your chances of getting hired:

1\. An introduction/recommendation by someone from the inside trumps
everything. Before even handing in a application, get to know a person from
the company that you are going to apply into, preferably someone in a high
position. If you went to a Japanese university (especially a high-ranking
one), a professor's recommendation is basically gold. At the very least, any
employee's introduction (even non-management) will get you past the HR filter
and most likely give you the first interview directly with an engineer, where
your various social faux pas will be forgiven.

2\. Engineering skills aside, employers are concerned about 2 things: a. How
good is your Japanese? b. How long are you going to stay in Japan? How you
answer b. is up to your judgment, but you have to be straight-up honest with
a. If you ever had any doubts about your Japanese (as I have), just be up-
front about it. No sense in bullshitting, as they will figure you out by the
first interview anyways. On the other hand, if you did a lot of prep, you will
surprise them and exceed their expectations.

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wccrawford
A lot of people forget that hunting for a job is an attempt for 2 entities to
fulfill needs. The employee wants money and (probably) a job they can care
about. The employer wants some specific work done, probably in a specific way.

Working-while-in-college jobs do not prepare us for job interviews properly
because shotgun resumes work perfectly fine there. The company only cares that
there is a human doing the work (which any human can do) and the employee only
cares that they get a paycheck.

When they move on, the employee is doubly unprepared. They don't understand
that an interview is 2-sided, and they don't have any experience dealing with
the situation, whereas the company does have both those things.

~~~
Swizec
I'm guessing this tends to depend a lot on the kind of working-while-in-
college jobs you do. A lot of comp sci majors work on their exact field of
work while in college. This gives them some pretty hefty experience points by
the time they look for a "real" job.

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zyb09
Very good article. The candidate response in that interview is indeed
brilliant, but in my experience it's very hard to come up with something like
this on-the-fly, without sounding like you're just rephrasing the other guy.
Maybe that's why I don't work in sales ;)

~~~
danenania
For engineers, I think the key is not to try to "sell yourself" or even talk
much about yourself at all. Instead, just start digging right into the
details. Act like they've already given you the job and you're trying to get
oriented so you can start. If you're smart and qualified, it will come through
very clearly if you take this approach. It focuses the interview on tangible
details and your problem solving abilities instead of amorphous qualifications
and experience that anyone can bs (and which interviewers are naturally
suspicious of). Also, if you are being interviewed by a less technical person,
asking detail-oriented questions (which they often won't have thought about
themselves) puts you in the driver's seat and gives you that 'tech guru' halo
that business guy types are secretly in awe of. Note I'm _not_ saying you
should speak in techno-babble. Use plain speech, but focus on details.

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genki
While I think the advice is applicable, I'm not sure how it really
differentiates from the shotgun resume approach. Either method involves making
first contact, and nothing starts without some form of communication with the
company you're interested in. The issue isn't throwing resumes at every
company with no plan, the issue is actually getting to speak to someone at the
company who knows what they're hiring for and is willing to talk to you about
it. I don't think this article covers that first step (and nothing can be done
without that initial contact).

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hkmurakami
I spent 2009-2010 working at a traditional Japanese company in Japan, and it's
interesting b/c the vast vast majority of Japanese students looking for their
first job will use the shotgun method (this is particularly the case for
Humanities students, not so much for science/engineering students though).

It's pretty typical for college students to apply to anywhere from 50-200
companies during their 3rd-4th years of college. The situation is so bad that
students compete for spots in "explanation sessions" at their universities by
using smartphones to snap up openings as soon as signups start (exacerbated by
the fact that many companies have cut new student hiring by anywhere from
30%-50% following the earthquake and power supply issues).

I believe the advice of this author applies primarily to people applying to
foreign subsidiaries operating in Japan (the so called "Gaishi-kei"
companies). His advice isn't really relevant for applying to Domestic Japanese
companies (what anditto writes is pretty accurate:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2769466>)

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freddealmeida
I think however, that if you really want to get the job, following the
AskTheHeadhunter strategy is probably best: 1\. Actively choose the companies
you want to work for. It doesn't matter if they have an open position or not.
2\. Research the company, discover the people you need to know, get to know
them, find out what the key issues are. 3\. Be able to do the job they need
done 4\. Be able to do the job the way they need it done 5\. Be able to do the
job profitably 6\. And do the job to get the job. Anything else is interview
skills, which have little value except to HR jobs.

And gaijinpot is probably not the best place for technologists. Nor any job
board that doesn't focus on your specific skills sets. Headhunters, just
outsource the above steps for you. Except they can't do the job for you.

------
javadev_eec
Intriguing title for what turned out to be usual generic career advice
platitudes

~~~
jason_tko
Thanks for taking the time to comment. You didn't pick up any new information
at all?

If not, do you have any tips or ideas to share about the interview process?

~~~
totalc
Where do you find the 'personalized information' about hiring managers etc?
You mention it's important to customize your approach, but don't give any
hints about where we're supposed to get that kind of information. Or do
employees at the companies you deal with put the entirety of their company's
structure into Linkedin or something?

~~~
jason_tko
This is done by paying very careful attention to the person who is
interviewing you.

Are they very formal? Friendly? Upbeat? Precise?

For example, if they're wearing a suit and tie in an extremely hot summer, and
they're very well groomed and are they asking direct questions about your
background with narrow eyes and folded arms, this gives me a tremendous amount
of information about the kind of person they are, where their concerns may
lie, and how to provide the kind of answers in a format they'll prefer and
appreciate.

By training yourself to be aware of the person on the other side of the table,
it's remarkable the detail and level of personalised information you can pick
up. Of course, this is a skill and takes time to develop.

~~~
a3camero
Ha! But that depends on getting an interview! The article says that the
shotgun method doesn't work and that the solution is to personalize your
messages. You can't personalize based on the interview that you don't have
because you didn't personalize!

Article: "If the job seeker doesn’t take time to understand the company, and
personalise their written and spoken message to the hiring manager at that
company, it’s easy to see why the business might pass them over for candidates
that offer more personalized communication."

~~~
jason_tko
Thats true. The article actually covers both.

Under "How do I personalise my message?", theres an example of customising
your message on the fly in the interview.

In regards to actually applying for the job, there are 5 examples of
customising your message to apply for the job.

The way I define the shotgun method, and why it's a flawed method, is that
it's a simple process of copying and pasting your resume and cover letter with
only the briefest of changes in the company name and the hiring manager's name
(and sometimes people even forget to change these) - without any understanding
or interest in the business itself, and the problems that it's trying to
solve, both in general and with hiring you.

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known
I think _Getting a Job is Sales_ says it all.

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rsierra
Even though some of the information in this article should be a "no-brainer",
I felt it did a nice job of reinforcing useful attributes of an effective
application. Furthermore, I thought his real-life interview examples were
helpful. I will definitely keep the pointers of this article in mind during my
post-grad job hunt.

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gambler
You can, of course, look at an interview as an opportunity to "sell" yourself,
but I think in the long run it's a much better idea to look for companies that
are willing to engage in a two-sided dialog, rather than expecting a sales
pitch.

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aphexairlines
Addendum to the Bonus Japan Section: Amazon's mobile web team is expanding in
Tokyo.

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alinajaf
Nice article, your about page link in the footer appears to be a 404 though.

~~~
Sukotto
[edit to remove bug report]

I liked this "how to hire" post from last year:
[http://www.makeleaps.com/blog/en/2010/07/hiring-your-
first-e...](http://www.makeleaps.com/blog/en/2010/07/hiring-your-first-
employee-for-your-service-business)

~~~
jason_tko
Thanks guys - I think I've fixed both of these. I've been doing a lot of work
on the site recently, so these fell through the cracks.

