One of the business world's most interesting job categories is design and marketing. And yet the opportunity for English-only foreigners to pursue this career path in Japan is extremely limited - mainly to positions servicing export companies, where the materials...

Today we relate a tale of one foreign reader who decided that it was important from a life experience perspective to work for a Japanese company, and furthermore, one far away from any of the major cities. He gives lots of good advice, in particular taking care of details...

I find that both managers and our customers fall into the trap sometimes of trying to find staff who are a perfect fit for the task at hand. "Get me some experienced bilingual engineers!" I'm told, "But don't be charging me full fare for them." Well, unfortunately, with the increasing influx of foreign firms wanting to take advantage of Japan's economic turn around, the demand for bilinguals has never...

Today's column is for managers and company owners who may be ignoring one of the best sources of success in Japan - the "diamond in the rough." That is, individuals who are rank beginners in the business but who will try their hearts out to get in and be successful. They may be...

I'm in my second month of seishain employment with an IT company, but in my fourth month of employment overall (I started under contract in 2005). The company mentioned nothing about a probation period after I converted to seishain, but among the paperwork items...

I frequently get email from people who are successfully working here in Japan but don't like the sector they're in, and want to change careers. Such as one from a reader this morning who is in engineering and has a decent job, but who really wants to get into a financial position even if it means starting over. His email included questions such as...

Every now and again, it seems like every 7-8 years. Japan goes through an economic cycle which stimulates all kinds of events that weren't previously imaginable. For example. in 1989-1990 it was sky-high valuations for land and where land became the main peg for personal net worth, getting loans, and of course making profits. Then in 1997-1999 the stock market made a brief but...

Back in September last year, the Japan Times carried a valuable series of articles on the findings of a labor ministry study group which is working on redefining the labor standards law. The group is apparently focusing on increasing the importance of company...

The byline at the bottom of each of these columns promises that Terrie will personally answer every email received. Certainly this creates a steady flow of mail to the family letterbox, and about 1-2 hours work answering the 3-5 enquiries a day. However, it has its rewards as well, especially when...

The Daijob HR Club is provided as a public service by Daijob, Inc., which hosts the website; provides editorial direction for its content and that of a related newsletter; and provides the venue and secretariat for meetings, seminars, events. Informing the HR Club we were keenly aware that HR managers are unlikely to participate if they could...