Robert Half Japan

Robert Half Japan is another one of these foreign recruiting companies who have a presence here in Japan, especially Tokyo. They focus on financial services and technology. Although they are a large company with headquarters on the prestigious Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, CA and are publicly traded on the NYSE, I found their Tokyo office to be a complete disappointment. Granted, they have nice offices in Otemachi, but their staff is utterly incompetent and have the same mentality as your typical foreign recruiters: churn them out, send resumes blindly, introduce salaries that are nowhere near the actual level, have no idea of what they are talking about as they are mostly former English teachers. In fact, a few of these guys in the Tokyo office have been there more than 20 years and can barely order in severely broken Japanese at the local izakaya. If this is the way you try to integrate yourself into the neighborhood, try again as that is a big fail.

Some of their usual tactics will be to blindly contact you, inform you that there is a great fit ("Oh, you are a computer programmer with 10 years of experience working in financial technology? Oh, I have this position with Suntory as a data entry staff that you would be perfect for!") and then have your hopes get up, only to of course have the company tell them they need perfect native Japanese skills and actual relevant skills to the job.

Another thing they do is ask you to come in, go over your history, ask for information about your salary and other private info, kiss your ass, and then after wasting an hour, say that oh, sorry, we don't have anything for you, but please keep in touch. WTF!

Robert Half is a typical snake oil salesman, doing nothing of value to the society, and basically pushing "product". Stay away from them.

Next post will be on another crap recruiting company. I will eventually go back to talking about good ones, but for now, I have to release my anger.