1.Introduction and overview of the country
1.1 Geography：Japan is island country located in the Eastern Asiawhich is also the island chain between the North Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Japan. The area of Japan is about 378000 sq.km, which is 4thlargest island country. The topography of Japanese is stratovolcano archipelago. The stratovolcano archipelago has five main island which are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and Okinawa. 【1】The climate in Japan is predominantly, however there is a very large difference between north to south. In Japan, the average winter temperature is 5.1 degree and 25.2 degree is the average summer temperature. Japan also provide some natural resource because of the unique weather. The natural resource are negligible mineral resources and fish; however, Japan doesnot have any natural energy resources. Japan is the largest importer of coal and liquefied natural and the second largest importer of oil. 【2】
1.2 Demographics：The Population in Japan is over 127 million people in 2018, which is 7thlargest population in the world. The ethnic groups in Japan are 98.1% of Japanese, 0.5% Chinese, 0.4% Korean and 1% others which include the Filipino and Brazilian. The largest age group in Japan is group of people who are 25-54 which have 37.28% in the total population. In 2018, there are almost 13.8 million people who live in Tokyo. Japanese spoken by 99% of population inside Japan. The most popular religion of Japaneseis Buddhism and Shinto Japan has longest overall life expectancy rate in the world.The society of Japan is collectivism and masculine. 【1】
1.3 Economy: For economy,Japan is the fourth largest economy in the world which is following United States and China. In 2017, the purchasing power parity is 5.443 trillion. Japan is the most technologically advanced producers of motor vehicles,electronic equipment and machine tools in the world. In 2017, Japan has 65.01 million labor force and 2.9% unemployment rate. 【1】
2.Recruitment practices:
2.1Overall
Generally, Japan has an economy with a booming employment market because the unemployment rate is 2.9% in 2017. 【1】Japan has unique career structure which most people will apply for the job when they leave university. Most of people will remain the job until retirement. Most Japanese people only work for one or two companies throughout their whole life time. In addition, Japanese company likes employer to work to their company for a long time, which creates the culture of lifelong employment. 【3】
2.2 How to find candidates
There are three popular ways that souring Japanese candidates. The first one is the network power that the company may find their potential network and ask for the referrals because finding the employers through the network which is more trustable. In addition, building relationship is very important.【3】The second way is that the company can find employees from recruitment agencies because the recruitment consultants can help the company to figure out their selling points and advantage to encourage suitable candidates to make the switch. 【3】It will be more save time when the company find a employers through the agencies. The third way to find a candidate is souring and reaching out through the Bizreach which is known as the Japanese Likedln.【3】
2.3 Interview
For Japanese candidates, they are modesty and honesty. They generally under promise and over deliver. During the interview, if they can do something for 10 out of 10, they only say that they can only do 5.【4】In Japan, the interview normally take a full hour and sometimes it may talk an hour and half. During the interview, the employers will not share the feeling of their thoughts, for example, they want that person to go to their companies, however they will not say it during the interview.【5】The employers want to get to know the candidates as much as possible that is why the interview takes about an hour. In addition, the atmosphere of the interview is heavy and laughter is rare. Everyone is serious and nervous about the job interviews in Japan. The atmosphere is heavy because there will have many people sitting in the front of the candidates. In Japan, companieswant to have multiple interviews with different approach because the company tend to test applicants react to those different questions. Japanese interview is strict routine, which applicants can cannot sit down until they are told. For the resumes, Japanese resumes have a strict format. Japanese resume has to put some privacy information, such as age, gender and marital status. 【6】
3.Selection practices
The most important thing for selection practices in Japan, there is a greater concern with personality and background than presumed ability. Therefore, Japanese companies provide some personality test to the candidates and let every candidate to talk it. The company may choose the highest score to become the employee. In addition, the traditional human resource department in Japan have to do the pre-employment screening which includes something more than phoning and personal references. If the HR department have more time, they may hire the private investigator who will contact the neighbors and former employers of the candidates. In Japan, people cannot check to others criminal records because records are not available to anyone; and also, personal credit rating checks can only be requested by the individual.【7】
4Miscellaneous information:
4.1 Employment relationship
Long-term employment
In Japan, companies only recruit new school leavers or graduates and those companies want to train those employees with high expectation because they want to keep employees within organization. Regular employees are concerned about the competitive position, and also they have a high degree of commitment to the enterprise. Most companies in Japan want to encourage long-term employment in the same firm. In addition, most lifetime employments are men. Most regular employees want to stay in the same company until their retirement age. 【8】
4.2 Atypical employment
In Japanese company, 40% of employees are in non-standard employment which including the part time workers, fixed-term workers and temporary workers. All the atypical workers do not have the job security. Therefore, companies are using the atypical workers because it can help the company to reduce the labour costs. There is the serious issue which is that regular employees and non-regular employees have the large differential wage. 【8】
Bibliography
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2.Anon, Wayback Machine. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20071113053915/http://www.mlit.go.jp/crd/chirit/ritoutoha.html [Accessed October 26, 2019].
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4.HumesContent, M. & Humes, M., 2016. How to Recruit in Japan: A Global Recruiter’s Perspective. Lever. Available at: https://www.lever.co/blog/recruiting-in-japan-vs- america-a-global-recruiters-perspective/ [Accessed October 26, 2019].
5.Anon, Working in Japan – 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Japanese Job Interviews. LIVE JAPAN. Available at: https://livejapan.com/en/in-tokyo/in-pref- tokyo/in-shinagawa/article-a0001676/ [Accessed October 26, 2019].
6.Ball, J., 2018. The brutal guide to hiring and firing in Japan. Business in Japan™. Available at: https://www.businessinjapan.com/the-brutal-guide-to-hiring-and-firing- in-japan/ [Accessed October 26, 2019].
7.Anon, The Japan HR Society (JHRS) – The HRA Editorial – October 2010: For Real or For Reel?–The truth about people is out there. Available at: http://www.jhrs.org/departments/recruiting/436107 [Accessed October 26, 2019].
8.Kopp, R., Thinking of working in Japan? It’s good to know what you’re in for. The Japan Times. Available at: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2019/01/30/how-tos/thinking-working- japan-good-know-youre/#.Xbf9ri2VagQ [Accessed October 29, 2019].
9.Samuelson, R., 2019. Opinion | If you want a peek at the future, try looking at Japan. You may not like what you see. The Washington Post. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/japans-fate-could-be-everyone-elses-
10.Ball, J., 2018. The brutal guide to hiring and firing in Japan. Business in Japan™. Available at: https://www.businessinjapan.com/the-brutal-guide-to-hiring-and-firing- in-japan/ [Accessed October 26, 2019].