Antelope Career Consulting

Antelope is a top recruiting company in Tokyo. Based in Hibiya, it has a network with most of the top financial firms as well as firms in other industries. However, it is primarily known as a financial industry and consulting industry recruiting firm.

Their staff is completely Japanese, but a couple of them speak decent English. One person worked in the US for a time, and he can hold conversation easily. Don't let the lack of Japanese language skills dissuade you from applying. I find most professional Japanese have a decent level of English comprehension although their speaking is something that requires work.

From their website, they work with the following types of companies:

Financial industry
Investment banks
Private equity/Investment funds
Asset managment/hedge funds
Venture capital companies
Commercial banks
Trust banks
Real estate finance companies
Government-affiliated finance compane

Consulting industry
Strategy consulting firms
Financial consulting firms
Recycling consulting
Human resources consulting
General/IT consulting
Medical consulting
Others

Japanese recruiting companies - Which ones?

I have talked with several Japanese recruiting firms. As with anything, some are better than others. However, what I found is that they all are much more polite and actually helpful in comparison to the horrible foreign recruiters-- Michael Page, Hays, Intelligence, Robert Walters in particular. In the future, I will give specific examples of why I hate those foreign recruiters, but for now, I will hold my tongue.

Japanese recruiters understand the way of doing business in Japan. Cultural expectations and business customs are essential in doing business, particularly in an industry such as recruiting where you are introducing human capital to a firm. Therefore, careful screening, understanding of the fit between the candidate and the hiring company, as well as people management skills are all critical. Understanding and working with a Japanese company requires a lot of indirect interaction. By that, I mean that you cannot be direct and say what you exactly want to say. This may be a turn off, but when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Anyways, check out these firms:
Antelope Career Consulting
Recruit
Kotora

Site update

I've added a search box for jobs from Indeed, which is actually a Japanese company. This site searches and crawls for job postings based on keyword and location. What I recommend is to enter something broad like "English", "English speaking", and similar phrases in the keyword section, and of course location is up to you. Be aware that the huge majority of English speaking jobs will be in Tokyo, with Osaka and possibly Kobe, Fukuoka and other smaller regional cities with limited opportunities available. I will go into what companies you can find outside of Tokyo, with an emphasis on foreign, multinational companies. 

Japanese recruiting companies

In my last post, I talked about which recruiters to avoid. Essentially, avoid the foreign companies if at all possible as they provide very limited value. Furthermore, their profit model is based on turnover, so they push any and all candidates for positions that have no relevancy to their qualifications. What this does is create distrust and even anger among the companies who repeatedly receive unqualified candidate profiles. What is important is to build the relationship between recruiter and companies, and the companies that I discussed in the last post have proved over time to fail to follow this simple concept. Another problem with these foreign recruiters is their arrogance and pride. They believe themselves to be superior to English teachers and people working less desirable jobs. Why they think this is anyone's guess? Recruiters often were former teachers, and many, if not most, cannot speak Japanese well enough to work at a professional level. So where does that leave them? Well, it leaves them at recruiting. As such, they have a built up sense of angst and enormous retaliatory mentality. They refuse to even consult and deal with foreign candidates with the exception of specific IT positions and senior level people. Anyone from entry level to mid management level will be given the cold shoulder.

So what can you do about it? Answer: Check out Japanese recruiters

Many Japanese recruiters are unable to speak decent English. That should be noted immediately. However, there are some who can speak conversational, even business level, English, so if you are unable to communicate in Japanese sufficiently, go to these recruiters. The cultural aspect of Japanese society also is a reason why I recommend Japanese recruiters. The majority of them won't be directly rude to your face and will make some type of effort to accommodate you. Of course, you may not know their true feelings, but it's something I prefer over direct rudeness you will face from foreign recruiters.

Another pro for Japanese recruiters is their network. Inevitably, Japanese recruiters will have a stronger, deeper, and broader network in Japan compared to foreigners. This is common sense. Tap this network, build the relationship with these recruiters, and, like a lottery sometimes, one of them may remember you and contact you for a certain position.

In the next post, I will list specific Japanese recruiters.

CareerCross and which recruiting companies to stay away from

The problem with CareerCross is that it's filled with recruiting companies, of which, most, if not all, are blood sucking leeches who throw random candidates to job posting that completely are unrelated. In particular, the foreign recruiters, most of whom are from English speaking countries such as the US, UK, Australia in particular, are working on a low base salary and subsist on commissions. As such, they push any candidate with a pulse to their clients, ending up with resentment from both sides. However, they are a necessary evil as the conservative business culture in Japan usually dictates that companies use recruiting companies rather than other means of securing talent.

This is changing with newer ways of finding workers, which I will discuss in another post. However, to continue with CareerCross, avoid the following recruiting companies:

Michael Page
Robert Walters
Robert Half
Morgan McKinley
Hays
enWorld

Unfortunately, this basically sums it all up. Avoid all foreign recruiting companies. Why in the world are they here in Japan is another quandry? The majority of these recruiters do not speak Japanese, have no ties to Japan other than just wanting to be here, and many are former teachers/JET staff who have refused to go back to their countries.

In my next post, I will recommend some Japanese recruiting firms. In a nutshell, Japanese firms provide more relevant service and will not blindly send your resume to any company.

Book Recommendations

There are lots of online material out there, but I found that certain books still provide the most pertinent and relevant information. I reviewed several books prior to coming to Japan, and I found these to be the best in terms of depth of information, practicality, and knowledge. Check them out for more info.