For recruiting college graduates, methods such as recommendation by professors,
company job fair/seminar and job search info-zine/job search web site are widely used.
When hiring new college graduates, points considered important are enthusiasm and
ambition (clerical, technical/research, and non-clerical), general common knowledge,
good education, cooperative spirit and sense of balance (clerical positions), technical
knowledge and skills (technical/research positions) and drive and executive ability
(non-clerical work). A survey carried out by the Japan Institute of Labor (2003a) shows
similar results, with focus being placed on ambition towards work, attitude and
competency, fundamental ability and aptitude, and stamina and good health. Attitude,
competency, fundamental ability and aptitude were considered important for
humanities-related jobs, while technique, skills, and knowledge were considered
important for science-related jobs.
Recruitment practices of four-year university graduates of the humanities and
social sciences differ from those of the natural and physical sciences. The norm for the
recruitment of university graduates of the natural and physical sciences is either a
recommendation by the student’s academic advisor, or a request to the advisor from
the company for introduction of a student. The hiring of university graduates of the
humanities and social sciences starts with a request for materials from various
companies during their junior year. Students attend seminars conducted by these
companies to gather more information before proceeding to written exam and
interview. After two or three interviews successful candidates will be given conditional
job offers, normally between May and July. For most companies, job offers are given
after much deliberation. However, research by the Japan Institute of Labor (2001)
shows that the decision period for some companies is becoming shorter.
In recent years, the convenience of the internet for job search has drastically
changed the job-hunting process of university graduates of the humanities and social
sciences. Students do not depend so much on company-made brochures for
organizational information, but on the company’s homepage instead. Applications
for events such as company information sessions can be made online. The use of
private-sector portal web sites for job-hunting is also becoming increasingly popular.
However, this is restricted to large enterprises, as small and medium-sized businesses
make a limited use of the internet for recruitment[7]. Another new trend is internship
programs carried out by government and public offices as well as companies, where
students spend the summer vacation of their junior year working at companies.
Although the number of students who have done internships is increasing rapidly, it is
still about 30,000 for all of Japan, due to companies’ limitations on the number of people
that they accept (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology,
2003).
On the contrary, for mid-career hires the most common methods are public
employment security office, “help wanted” advertisements, fliers in newspapers and
personal connections(Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, 2001). Job experience
(management and clerical categories), technical knowledge/skills and job experience
(technical/research positions), and enthusiasm, ambition, good health and stamina
(non-clerical workers) are the most desired attributes. The purpose is to make use of
ready skills and abilities of management and technical/research candidates. Clerical
and non-clerical mid-career workers are often hired to fill vacancies left by retirees.
While small and medium-sized companies are increasingly looking for workers in
mid-career, large enterprises too are quickly coming to strengthen this trend of hiring
mid-career experienced workers. As far as hiring of company directors is concerned,
the emphasis will be on hiring mid-career workers. However, research shows that the
hiring of mid-career workers has remained the same over the years[8]. On the other
hand, the recruitment of new hires without work experience, such as new graduates,
fell slightly from 7.0 percent in 1992 to 5.7 percent, an extremely slow change.