Career Coaching on Japanese Bilinguals by Hiroko Sato
By: Marge Friginal-Sanchez
Tags: Jcci Edi Events, Career Coaching, Persol, Japanese

Are you on the right career track? Are you thinking of starting a career using your Nihongo skills? These questions drove approximately 40 participants to our John Clements Hub in Makati in the afternoon of February 15th, Saturday, for the first JCCI-Professional Staffers and Japan Desk Career Coaching Seminar for Japanese Speakers. Most participants were JLPT certificate holders with varied backgrounds and previous experience in working for Japanese companies.

As a managing consultant of the JCCI Japan Desk, I was in charge of the opening remarks and introduction of the Japan Desk, which had been set up in partnership with Persol corporation, a giant HR recruitment consulting firm in Japan. Persol has been leading the industry for more than 40 years, almost the same as JCCI’s number of years in operation.

Ever since Persol and JCCI began their business collaboration, the need for Japanese bilinguals in the market increased, and at the same time, the requirement trends from the clients started to change. Professional language skill is a strong competency; however, language skills is not the final destination for many bilingual Filipinos. One of the recruiters observed that a Japanese-skilled Filipino tended to fall into the career pit due to inadequate language proficiency. When the market is mature, demands become higher and more complex, and your career will not be able to rely on it by itself. Leveling up proficiency is crucial; however, if you want to move up in your career, you should start learning additional skills.

In my remarks, I addressed three objectives of the seminar: first, to introduce John Clements, Persol corporation, and the participants themselves, who took this opportunity to review their careers and think about where they wanted to go. The second objective was to join our network and share beneficial information. Upon registering with the JCCI talent community, everyone will be able to connect with the JCCI network, get support in terms of jobs and careers, update their language skills with other participants, and obtain additional helpful information. And the third and last objective of the seminar was to get actual job opportunities to nourish the careers of those who were not happy in their current work environment.

The program consisted of three parts: the presentation, coaching Q&A, and personal talk session. For the presentation, Mr. Takashi Ota, one of the event coordinators, talked about the labor market of the Japanese bilingual talents in the Philippines. He also introduced the flow of the recruitment process; interview questions that employers might ask applicants and advice on how to answer; and identifying positions in companies that require Japanese-skilled talents.

In the coaching Q&A session, native Japanese consultants answered questions on language assessment, language skills and job matching, OFW job opportunities and others. In the final personal talk session, each participant spent 10 minutes with a Japan Desk staff to privately talk about their current situation and expected work environments. This private session was not like an interview, but more of a casual face-to-face meeting to get to know each other.

During the program, there were coffee breaks where participants also socialized with each other. We believe they have a common topic and goal, which stimulates them to drive and move forward. The Career Coaching Seminar was our first event in 2020 and we are looking forward to coming back to keep connecting with Japanese skilled talents in the Philippines!