Fresh
College Grads, Freshly Cut Grass - Ah, It Must Be April
by
Steve Pollock
(Originally published in the Nikkei
Weekly as part of the Japan Business Seminar column.)
I was having a coffee at Starbucks in Tokyo’s Shinagawa Ward, and I
noticed that every table was filled with young people wearing identical
black suits. The woman sitting at the table next to me explained that
she, like the others, was a college student on her way to a job interview
with a potential employer.
It was a very important moment for her – and for her prospective employers.
April in Japan is the season when new graduates become a central focus
of Japanese companies. Unlike firms in the U.S., which generally view
college recruiting as a small piece of their talent equation, most major
Japanese companies consider college recruiting to be the heart and soul
of their staffing efforts.
Although Japanese companies are increasingly hiring mid-career and contract
staff, the core talent pool for future corporate management remains the
group of employees who join the company right after graduating college.
This has a profound impact on the Japanese organization and employee.
The Japanese employer has a long-term view of its talent. The hiring
cycle is drawn out, with recruiting efforts beginning up to a year and
a half in advance, and serious interviewing occurring a year before the
new hires start in April en masse. The Japanese organization invests
significant resources in training and promoting staff from within – and
waits much longer than U.S. companies do to achieve payback on those
investments. At the same time, the company is able to shape its workforce
to its own design and, in the process, create a strong corporate culture
and long tenure.
The graduating student, in turn, works hard to secure a position with
a highly regarded employer. Those who aren’t able to secure an offer
will be branded as incapable – a negative stigma that could last their
entire careers. Those who land a position will benefit from their firm’s
reputation and have a strong identity as part of an incoming class. They
can remain secure in the knowledge that the company will train and care
for them, and that they have a chance to move up the corporate ladder
over time.
This contrasts sharply with college recruiting in the U.S. Most U.S.
employers seek employees who can be effective quickly (tested through
a summer internship, if possible), with the assumption that many will
move on in two-three years. Students see the first job as merely a first
step in a career that will take them to many different employers. They
crave early responsibility and work that will facilitate subsequent career
advancement, eagerly testing the market for the best offer.
The contrast between U.S. and Japanese styles brings another April tradition
to mind for me: the start of baseball season. The Japanese recruits,
like rookie players, show up in their uniforms, hoping they’ll land a
spot on a good team as the start of a promising career. In contrast,
the U.S. grads are more like free agents, looking for the best offer
and hoping for a starring role, yet confident that if things don’t work
out, they’ll have more chances later.
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