Michael Page Japan

Michael Page Japan is another basic, run-of-the-mill, terrible recruiting company. From their website, they are a British company with about 1 billion pounds in revenue and more than 5,000 employees. They are listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Already, by the fact that they are a public company with large revenues and numerous employees, this should be a red alert to people. They are a churn factory, and what they do is push people to any number of random positions to meet quota. They will put a furniture worker for an IT data engineer role because, hey, wood working could actually be seen as an engineer of some sorts! Or they may put an English teacher forward for a country manager role, because, hey, this guy has lived overseas and is an international man of mystery!

I have used Michael Page Japan several times. I went to their shitty old offices in Kamiyacho where they tried to portray themselves as international-chic, but they are no more than a bunch of old JET and English teachers who are trying to find a way to stay in Japan without teaching English. It's as simple as that. The Japanese staff there, meanwhile, are washed up corporate rejects who are unemployable and have no skills other that goma suru and brown nosing their bosses, while working as loyal robots with no opinions of their own. Their former country manager is a Euro-dork who is completely clueless and is a passive aggressive moron.

In my next post, I will talk about specific examples of their ineptitude.

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.

Nikkei Career Net site

Nikkei Career Net site

This is a popular career website in Japan. It predominantly features Japanese companies and recruiters. Also, the majority of the postings are entirely in Japanese so I'd advise either being able to read some key words in Japanese or get an online translation of the sites. There are good selections of job posts, but as with most of these kinds of sites, strong Japanese ability is needed, at least for reading. Also, when you actually receive a email from these guys, more often than not, the email will be in Japanese as these recruiters can only function in that language. However, there are some great jobs.

Consider searching by keywords such as "English", "xxx English", or something to that effect. This site also requires you to register and upload your resume. This is actually a good, time saving tool which can allow you to mass apply with a click of the mouse.

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

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.

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.

Popular career search sites

As mentioned in an earlier post, there are several major recruiters/headhunters in Japan that assist with foreigners in looking for positions in Japan. My default location will be Tokyo as most of the positions will be here. I will review some of the major recruiting firms as I have had interactions with all of them. For now, I will also share some popular websites that post jobs. Today I will talk about CareerCross. CareerCross is the flagship website of C.C. Consulting in Tokyo, established by a foreigner. It is the first such site from a foreigner and is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, job sites in Japan.

Pros
The site has numerous postings ranging from industries, language levels, locations, and other attributes. They provide an extensive and broad selection of career opportunities.

Cons
The majority of the job posts are done by recruiting firms. There is a group of the usual recruiting firms who dominate this site with their postings.Often, the same position is posted by several of these recruiters. Also, another major negative is the lack of knowledge about the posted position by these recruiters, of whom many are newly hired former English language teachers.

In my next post, I will talk more about CareerCross and how to find specific jobs, use certain keywords, and sort out the useless companies.