Ace your Japanese Job Interview – Key Tips

Are you interviewing at a Japanese company? This blog will help give you a few tips to help you pass your interview.

If you are serious about preparing for a Japanese job interview – check out our full course on the subject Japanese Job Interview Prep Course

1. Be Prepared

As a foreigner – you will be fighting an uphill battle and be looked at much more closely than a domestic candidate would.

Japanese companies have an expectation that you will be:

• Early to the interview location
• Researched the company you are interviewing with fully
• Showing an attitude of gratitude for the interview and a sincere interest in joining the company

Cross-cultural note: In western hiring practices – the job candidate is a precious resource and the company will do their best to get them to choose to work with the company in many contexts.

In Japan – people are supposed to adopt a very self-effacing and humble attitude and it is always the candidate who seeks to impress the company and have the company accept them as a part of the company.

If a candidate comes to an interview with an air of too much confidence, or disinterest, it will generally not go well.

2. Dress for Success

Depending on the type of company – a black suit with black shoes and a black tie are mandatory items that you will need to wear in order to show that you are a serious candidate.

Of course this depends on the organization that you are working with and the role – however, even seemingly progressive companies that are in IT – may have this expectation.

This is especially true if your role involves any outward facing work such as meeting with external clients and partners.

If you are going to be one of the first foreign staff that they hire – Its better to play it safe and wear a black suit and black tie. This will signal to the company that you understand how to accept cultural norms and how to fit-in.

3. Know some key phrases

Even if your Japanese isn’t great, you will score a huge bonus for trying to learn and use polite Japanese to introduce yourself and answer some simple questions.

We will not cover them here – but if you are looking for a guide to several key questions that will appear in a Japanese Job interview – check out this blog.

https://cotoacademy.com/4-key-questions-japanese-job-interview/