Job hunting in Japan is a daunting task for university students and is a prolonged process which can take up to 18 months. The process starts before they graduate from university. Students go to university for 4 years in Japan and they start searching for their permanent jobs as early as when they are juniors (3rd grade). This process is called shūkatsu (就活).
There are two stages to shūkatsu. Firstly, university students, at the beginning of October during their third year, attend seminars organised by companies and the recruitment industry from all around the country. Many have to travel to the major cities for these events which can be cost-consuming. Secondly, at the start of their final year, they have to go through a selection stage which consists of IQ tests and several interviews.
A provisional offer of employment or ‘naitei (内偵) will have been sent to successful applicants, usually around October. By this time, students would have contacted many companies and spent hundreds of hours attending recruitment fairs, tests and interviews. The competition is fierce for a limited number of openings in some popular corporations. Usually traditional big corporations are popular among prospective graduates.
Japanese companies’ recruitment is not based on the graduates’ grades achieved in university. They are more interested in which university the graduates come from. The more prestigious university the university graduates come from, the better. This is why students study really hard for their university entrance exam and often attend cram schools in an attempt to enter the country’s prestigious universities.
Their sole purpose is to go to university and it does not matter what they study. When job-hunting activities start in the second-semester of their third year, absences become common. However, this is of little consequence to employers, which have absolutely no interest in grades. As a result, it is not required for them to study hard to pass final exams.
Companies do not ask for academic transcripts during the hiring process. A top student who graduates in four years has little or no advantage over the student who scrapes through in five or six. Japanese university life is considered to be time of leisure for them. A four-year standstill of rest and relaxation, between examination hell and a path into society.
