I've spoken before about the value of doing an internship and using the “ties that bind us” to allow a happy and motivated job seeker's personality to shine through to compensate for an otherwise deficient resume, experience, or qualifications. I have come across many people who are looking to change careers and an internship is a great way to...

2006 was an excellent year for most foreign firms and larger Japanese ones. The economy coasted along on export demand of both finished goods and tools, value-added materials, and corporate profits are at record highs. It was a good year to negotiate pay raises and to look for a new job - but will 2007 be more of the same? Well, financial pundits are saying that things...

Most people think of Public Relations (PR) as being something you do to build a brand to increase sales. While this is true, it is also a very important tool for recruiting, for pretty much the same reason - to build a brand in the minds of job seekers. Brand building is a combination of building...

Over the last 10 years, I've met a lot of foreigners wanting to get more out of their jobs in Japan, but who are being frustrated either by some old fashioned hard-core company system OR because they lack the skills to take the next step up. Usually you would think that such people are at the...

While most job candidates worry about being seen as not committed enough if they have moved jobs a number of times, today I will cover the opposite situation, which is people working in one place too long and how to overcome the negative image of doing so. As you get older and become more proficient...

The poor working conditions of foreign trainees in Japan came to the public's attention back in August 2006, when a Chinese trainee at a pig farm in Chiba complained about the harsh work conditions and was told that his traineeship would be terminated. This of course meant that he would be banished back to...

The following article was first published in my Terrie's Take newsletter, and has been edited a little. I would like to point out that although I am critical of the Trainee system as it stands at the moment, the fact...

While Okinawa, with its special culture and friendly people is a great place to visit, you have to remember that apart from the call centers, it is primarily a tourism and agriculture-fisheries based economy. This makes it tough to get a decent job, and as if the local unemployment rate of 7.6% (13.2% for youths) wasn’t enough, the prefecture also has...

One of my clients is setting up a data center in Okinawa. Although I have known that it offers tax incentives and is rapidly improving its infrastructure, my impressions of Okinawa have been based on a visit I made to the island 7 or 8 years ago. At that time, I saw a small Asian city that I didn’t recognize as part of Japan. There were few hotels...

The following is an unofficial history of how Okinawa has become a rising technology center in Japan. I will follow up next week with my impressions of the island and practical issues relating to either setting up there and finding people, or on the other side of the coin finding a job there. Back in the mid-1990's, Japan's economy was in...