

The Heart and Soul Commitment Paradox - dan7
http://www.makeleaps.com/blog/en/2011/08/english-the-heart-and-soul-commitment-paradox/

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patio11
I like virtually everything about this, but if I had a Twitter-sized time
machine, this would be going to @patio11#2000:

 _If you’re going to fail at something, at least fail by being too aggressive,
rather than failing by default through passivity._

If you ever have the opportunity to come to a Tokyo HN meetup, you'll get to
meet Jason, who wrote this and runs them. He's one of the few people at the
sweet spot on the Venn diagram "personality is a force of nature" and "would
gladly spend time hanging out with."

On the specific topic of getting a job in Japan: if this is really your goal
in life, star the part where it becomes 100,000x easier to do this after you
have some "in" in Proper Japanese Society (TM). If you are a force of nature
like Jason is, then you'll end up getting one sometime between landing and
convincing the Prime Minister's secretary that he should be having tea with
you. You can do it in meek-friendly ways, or I never would have managed it. (I
applied to an exchange program, got placed as a translator, and used a happy
client as an introduction into the wonderful word of salarymandom. So that's a
route. There might also be one that passes through the river Styx, in which
case, use that one instead. But there are definitely options.)

Key take away, though: like Jason says, virtually anything you can possibly do
here is more effective than the halfhearted typical resume spray-and-pray from
abroad that most people who say they want a job in Japan do. Resume spray-and-
pray is a terrible idea in general, but it's terrible-squared in the
particular circumstance "foreigner wants a job at a Japanese company" because
of the way gatekeepers work here.

BTW: You can get status in Proper Japanese Society (TM) by working for a high-
status organization outside the country which you can convince to lateral you
over to Tokyo. Think of a massively high-status US organization: they probably
have dealings in Tokyo. There are a variety of ways to convince them to send
you to Japan. One fairly straightforward one is to know more Japanese than you
can find printed on a sushi menu, which will catapult you ahead of 99.8% of
their US employees for that opportunity. The specifics of how to do this and
how hard it would be depend on the organization: I have heard of places where
Tokyo is considered a hardship post and have heard of places where Tokyo is
considered the kind of place you kick butt and take names for a career to get
a stint in. (And would have had ZERO luck identifying those prior to hearing
anecdotes from inside. Sorry, can't identify them without breaking
confidences.)

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gacba
Sum it up this way: The difference between _good_ and _great_ is persistence.

Anyone can be good by ability, the great manifest it forcefully.

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georgieporgie
I'm curious where the author found 100 jobs to apply for.

Having tried it, my advice is _don't_ go to Japan and then look for work,
unless you're lucky enough to be from a country with Working Holiday
agreements (not the US), or have a lot of connections.

~~~
Cushman
There are jobs everywhere. That's the paradox of the modern recession: lots of
jobs, just none you're qualified for.

~~~
georgieporgie
True, but it's particularly challenging when you don't know where to find
them. Especially in Japan, where it's my understanding that the whole
networking thing is much more important.

