From: blamb@hri.com (Bill Lambert)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: Talent in Japanese busines world
Date: 17 Dec 92 23:14:30 GMT
Organization: Horizon Research, Inc.



=> >In article <1992Dec15.014633.4285@sj.ate.slb.com> 
=> >kumamoto@sj.ate.slb.com (Danny Kumamoto) writes:
=> >
=> >>In Japan, with most jobs (male or female), it usually doesn't matter
=> >>what your college major was, since management will decide for you
=> >>where you should work at (what matters is which college you came
=> >>from).  I know one mid-20's woman who majored in fishery (at Toodai)
=> >>but is now working as a system engineer (straight off of college) at a
=> >>well-known Japanese company (IBM Japan :-)!

=> In article <BzBpoF.Cu1@ncifcrf.gov> masuda@fcs280b.ncifcrf.gov 
=> (Michiaki Masuda) writes:
=> >   This story of female Todai grad would rather tell the attitude of 
=> >a job seeker than the management policy of a company. If she is working
=> >as a S.E. for IBM Japan, that's at least partly because she applied for
=> >the company instead of a fishery company. I don't think that she was
=> >expecting that she would be able to make an extensive use of her educational
=> >background in IBM.

In article <1992Dec17.191833.5569@island.COM>, fester@island.COM 
(Mike Fester) writes:
=> Two friends of my wife both got jobs at the same company (both graduates of
=> the same university). The one who majored in engineering was assigned to 
=> marketting, and the one with the degree in international business relations was
=> assigned to the computer section.
=> 
=> Japanese personel departments are famous for going with their "gut feelings" on
=> things (unless the employee is a foreigner, in which case s/he is matched with
=> their field of expertise).
=> 
=> >   This also tells about another possible problem in the college education
=> >in Japan. It's my impression that most undergrad courses in Japanese
=> >colleges/universities are not functioning as a occupational or professional 
=> >training. 
=> 
=> Mombusho is constantly trying to upgrade the Japanese University system, parti-
=> cularly in the various graduate programs. Toward this end, they attempt to 
=> enlist the aid (read: donations) from Japanese companies. The usual response
=> from the large companies is "We can teach them (the students as new employees)
=> everything they need to know. Anything else, we can send them to America to
=> study."

Sort of in line with what Mike has presented here, and what Masuda
San has noted...

After my wife and I married and moved here, she was considering
what kind of job to seek. Her background is a degree in math
from one of the better women's colleges in Japan and about
6 years experience as a software engineer at a large company.

She mused, "Now might be a good time to change my career to
something more 'people oriented', such as advertising, mass
media, teaching, or like that."

I replied, "Huh?"

She explained that in Japan it would probably be not much of
a problem to change careers and retain "seniority", as the
major factor would be the college she graduated from, and less
so her actual experience or previous work. She says that the
new company in Japan would provide training.

I explained that here (US) it was difficult to change careers
without stepping back or additional training. Anyway, we tried
to find a good job that would be interesting for her, but either
they required previous experience, or the positions were 'entry
level' and she wasn't willing to take such a cut in salary (she
is, shall we say... frugal). She was very disappointed after a
few investigations of the types of jobs she might be able to get
here. (of course there was the additional problems of langauge
and culture after moving to a new country)

In parallel, of course, we pursued software engineering positions,
and eventually she landed a pretty good job at a well known
company.

- Bill