Job searching for new graduates in Japan is unique in comparison to the rest of the world. It is perhaps due to the lasting effect of the collapsing life time employment system, where students would go for the same company until retirement, leading to students entering employment one month after graduation without taking a gap year. In order to ensure they get the best talents, companies used to hand out early offers to students. Right now, some companies have agreed with one another to abandon such practices, but others continue to do so. This has caused toubles for students as well as universities.
On the other hand, there are increasingly more companies that are actively recruiting international students, especially the ones with multilingual language skills. If a company decides to expand overseas, they will certainly recruit locally. However, there are companies that prefer to recruit international new graduates in Japan, teach them the culture and philosophy of the company, and prepare them to assume leadership in their home country when the company expands overseas.
If one decides to look for a job in Japan, they have to go through the same recruitment process as their Japanese peers. At j Career, we have prepared various programs to provide international students with comprehensive support in order for them to win job offers. Those programs include Japanese lessons, resume writing guidance, business manner in an interview, advice on change of residence status. We provide them with these supports so they can compete at the same level as their Japanese peers.
Situation on Foreign Labors
There are about 717 thousand foreign labors in Japan. Among them, 87 thousand are white-collar labors working under specialist in humanities/international services and engineer visa. This number is going up by 20 thousand annually (20% increase) as a result of skilled labor immigration and international new graduates.
If we look at international new graduates from a nationality standpoint, the vast majority are from China, representing 60% of oreverall international new graduates. However, in recent years, there has been an increase in students coming from Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.