Japan’s Recruiting is Really Outdated?

Japan’s Recruiting is Really Outdated?

The comparison of Japan’s recruiting custom to the global practice

Kiyotaka ISHIKAWA

“Once you miss the chance, you are a loser for the rest of your life.” This is a usual saying when Japan’s recruitment system goes into a controversy. Same as the global practice of recruitment, Japan’s students have to find their job during their final year of the university,  however, different from the global practice, otherwise they will have much less opportunity to be a regular employee. This point of criticism is quite reasonable, but it does not, by any means, justify blindly admiring of the American recruitment practice. This article* provides with a fair discussion over Japan’s recruitment custom, suggesting a few liable misleading of American job offering, and focusing on rational aspects in Japan’s recruitment.

Generally accepted criticisms on periodic recruiting of new graduates

It is a problem that the current recruitment system is too stressful for students; however, is that really good reason for promoting the social mobility of employment and the diversity of career? A typical suggestion persuades major companies to change the current practice, saying that “Look at the American, we can manage human resources more rationally if we make use of graduated students and mid-career workers.” Another says “Look at the American, we can create innovative products and services like Apple and Google if we hire various people with various careers.” IS THAT REALLY SO?

America’s recruiting is not that good as the Japanese think

For the first point of the issue, the social mobility of employment, it is exact that American major companies advertise for young employees regardless of the graduation year nor season, that is called the entry level employment. However, this type of job offer requires business experiences in the corresponding categories, so most American students have to start their career as an associate staff or trainee for a small salary. Those workers who get the first job in that way, unlike the regular employee post in Japan, do not expect promotions and pay raises.

Secondly, the diversity of career is also misleading context of employment in the United States. Yes, the American workers change their job more frequently than the Japanese do, yet they hardly change their specialty. Once they have apprenticeship in a certain job category, it is difficult to change the course whether the job is suited for them or not, because they have to fight for a position among well-experienced mid-career people. As a result, the American employees in big companies are even more standardized than the Japanese. Thinking about Macintosh and Google’s search engine, none of these were born in a big company but in a garage.

Re-evaluating the rational aspects of Japan’s old-fashioned recruitment 

As often pointed out, Japan’s recruitment system is based on the periodic employment of inexperienced students, which might sound irrational competition for the homogeneous working environment. Even if so, putting newcomers with similar inexperience into training reduces the education costs. On the other hand, there is a disadvantage in the American system that employing workers along with their own specialty means they only have to do their job and have no prospect to promote into a higher position.

The sense of loyalty in most of Japanese companies raises discussion over the negative aspect of remaining in a single company for life; for example, such an attitude toward the company prevents employees from establishing their specialty. Nevertheless, that form of service works well in the way that employees can find the most suited kind of job in the company by going through a variety of types of job. Moreover, the personnel changes within the company can be responsible to unexpected cases over human relations at a minimum cost, for instance, a worker having trouble with his boss. 

Conclusions

In summary, the American practice of recruitment are not necessarily a good medicine for the syndrome of Japan’s corporate structure in the labor market because adopting the very way of the U.S. cause also a few of side effects. Neither way of Japan nor America can save students entering to business from hardship in job hunting; switching to the specialty-based employment in turn deepens standardization of human resources in the context of major companies. 

Contrarily, the Japanese custom of recruitment is re-discovered to have a number of good characters worth evaluating in terms of business rationality. As long as young workers are adopted and remain in the closed corporate structure, personnel affairs are quite rationally optimized in newcomer education and human resource allocation. 

*Ebihara, T. (2009), Koyou no Joushiki (The Sense of Recruitment), p.183-200, Chikuma Publishing.