New Grad's Job Hunting 2

As I discussed in the last blog (New Grad's Job Hunting), those young people start their work from April.  Most companies held a welcome ceremony for those new employees.

Welcome Ceremony

After the ceremony, most Japanese companies provide training to new hired.  Topics covered in the training vary depending on each company but usually include fundamental things like a business manner (e.g. how to vow, exchange business cards, etc.), which might look interesting to foreigners but is important as a business person in the Japanese business society.

The new hired join a division which they are assigned.  The section is not necessarily related to what the new employee wants to do or can do by utilizing what they learned at university.  Most Japanese companies seem not expecting the new grad to bring the skills they learned at university, but rather rotate the new grad different divisions possibly every a few years or so to find the best fit for the employee, as I guess.

The training and rotational assignment are based on an assumption that the employee stays at the company through his/her career.  However, the things are changing these days.

It is reported that more than 30% of new employees from universities leave their companies in three years.  This is surprising stats in the Japan's labor market where lifetime employment used to be normal.

The new hired used to stay at the first company through the whole career even though they felt certain mismatch to the company; however, such a mismatch could become an enough reason to change job today as the Japan's labor market becomes more flexible for job changing than used to be.

Students cannot necessarily come up to the best result after going through the job hunting and might just take an offer from a company although the company is not their first choice.  Then they might try to create their career while working at the first company for a few years and look for next chance to move up to the better career.  There should be other motivations to move, however, the truth is this sort of early movement is now accepted in the Japan's job market.

Hunting a job has been very tough for students for more than a decade.  New grad might have become very smart to survive in such a difficult situation.

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