TOKYO — Brendan White, a senior at Temple University’s Japan campus, says he has it all figured out. He is dressed in his “job hunt” black suit, accessorized with shiny leather shoes, a crisp white shirt — plain, no stripes and no wrinkles — and a black briefcase, for which he ponied up $20, just for this job-hunting season.
He also knows how to finesse his way into an interview room, Japanese style: You must knock three times, etiquette experts say — not once, not twice. Once in the room where interviewers are seated, “you close the door without turning away from the interviewers,” said Mr. White, a Massachusetts native. “You are not supposed to show your behind.”
Every move thereafter, including sitting down, should follow the interviewer’s cue, he noted.
All of this used to be a preserve for Japanese college students, who go through an arduous search process, lasting five to eight months, to land the job of their dreams. But, in a sign of changed times, a recent job fair in Tokyo, where Mr. White was scurrying around to meet officials at different corporate booths, was aimed exclusively at foreigners. Japanese companies are gearing up for an extensive international student recruitment campaign — a human resource strategy supporting a larger game plan to deploy their businesses more globally.
Isao Ogake, director of global career and education at Disco, a job fair organizer that hosted the international job bazaar in Tokyo, said corporate Japan’s appetite to engage more non-Japanese has been soaring, reflecting a growing desire to go global and to add diversity to the workforce.
Of more than 800 midsize to large companies surveyed by Disco, “48 percent of them say they plan to recruit non-Japanese college graduates,” Mr. Ogake said. “That is up from 35 percent last year.” The number was just over 20 percent a few years back, he added.
At many large corporations now “it is common to have a 10 percent target quota for internationals,” he said.
Yet for all the stated goal of fostering diversity, foreign job seekers are still expected to fit the Japanese mold.
Tomoyuki Ichikawa, executive officer in the global business department at Pasona, another job fair host, said he encouraged internationals to embrace Japanese manners, even if they were not required to do so by corporations, strictly speaking.
“We want international students to be on the same playing field as Japanese students,” he said. “It would be sad if they are rejected on the basis of etiquette.”
The dress code for men may be informal, but it is clear: black suit, bleached white shirt and a nondescript necktie. Women are advised to wear a skirt, especially for tradition-bound financial institutions.
While 33 percent of international respondents surveyed by Disco indicated some discomfort with the rigidity of the dress code, Mr. Ogake justified it as just part of a screening process that all job applicants must go through. Employers also administer examinations for job hunters, with a battery of questions that test their knowledge of world affairs and their general professional aptitudes.
The fixation on form has much to do with the fact that Japanese corporations recruit a large number of new graduates each year, often numbering in the hundreds. Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi, one of the world’s largest banks, hired 1,550 employees last year, for example. With such large numbers to sort through, companies need some form of triage process, Mr. Ogake said. “The whole process needs to be efficient and systematized,” he said, with the dress code acting as a useful starting point, indicating a candidate’s readiness to conform to expected corporate behavior.
The Japanese hiring approach has its advantages for entry-level candidates. Rather than recruiting to fill specific openings and vacancies, as many Western companies do, Japanese corporations hire a large number of fresh graduates annually and train them into a productive workforce. Newly minted graduates have a shot at landing a job at such marquee names as Toyota Motors, which engaged 600 new hires in 2013.
Since most international students don’t have proven experiences on their résumés, “that must work out well for internationals,” said Yoshihiro Taguchi, a representative of NAP, a volunteer organization that helps international students find jobs in Japan.
“Altogether, 90 percent of all college graduates end up with a decent job in Japan,” he added. “That number would be preposterous in other countries.”
According to the Japanese Ministry of Education and Science, 94.4 percent of this year’s graduating students had found a full-time job by the spring.
Another advantage is that companies do not expect their new recruits to hit the ground running. They are willing to hire employees without skills and invest in building their capabilities, hoping to reap the benefits over time.
“They hire you based on your potential, including your language skills,” Mr. Ogake said.
Mr. Taguchi, who worked for Mitsui Life for decades before retiring, agreed. “Corporations don’t think universities prepare students for a job,” he said, “so they have comprehensive in-house training systems.”
Ramin Khatami, 27, an engineering graduate student from Iran at Gunma University, said this was what led him to study in Japan.
“Japanese corporations are very competitive and provide the best education for employees,” said Mr. Khatami, who hopes to work for a high-tech company such as Kyocera. “I can progress toward my goal with such good training.”
The Japanese approach has several consequences for career development. One is that midcareer hiring is relatively rare — there’s an expectation that young recruits will rise into management positions through in-house training and experience. Another is that promotion often comes slowly in the early years; five to seven years is the minimum to reach the lowest rung in a managerial hierarchy, said Mr. Ichikawa, the Pasona executive.
That can lead to defections: Foreign companies operating in Japan often hire internationals away with attractive salaries and positions, Mr. Ichikawa said.
“People who worked for Japanese companies for a few years are well trained and are a prime target for poaching,” he said.
Louis Klépal, a French engineering graduate of a double-degree program at Keio University in Tokyo, and the École Centrale de Nantes in France, made the jump one year after working for a Japanese engineering company.
“I learned how to speak to Japanese customers,” said Mr. Klépal, who now works for Schneider Electric in Tokyo. “If you are a foreigner, you might kick in the door of your customer, but it might shut right back. If you know the right manners, you can keep the door open.”
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