Job interview season begins for university students in Japan

Companies started employment interviews on Wednesday with university students due to graduate in spring 2017.

Last year, the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) directed its member firms to start their screening processes for university seniors on Aug. 1. This year, Keidanren brought forward the starting date to June — two months earlier than last year — to shorten the period for job-seeking activities, which commence after the job fair season’s start in March. A seller’s market is expected to continue, as demand for new employees remains high this year.

Many of the roughly 1,300 Keidanren member companies — including large ones — conducted employment interviews on Wednesday, and from early morning students in dark suits could be spotted bustling about the business districts.

According to employment information firm Disco Inc., this year the number of informal job offerings to prospective recruits will peak in early June. A number of companies are expected to conduct multiple interviews with applicants over a period of one or two weeks to informally decide who to hire.

At the headquarters of major trading house Mitsubishi Corp. in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, students had been lining up since before the reception desk opened at 9 a.m. Wednesday. The company plans to welcome about 180 new recruits next spring — a slight decrease from this spring’s figure — and about 750 students were to undergo interviews at the firm on that day alone.

Among them was a male student of Keio University, 21, who said he was glad that job interviews started before the university’s exam period. “Trading firms are my first choice. So this is the real start of my job hunt,” he said.

Major non-life insurer Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Insurance Inc. also started employment interviews at 39 locations across the country, with many students already lining up at around 9 a.m. at the reception desk of the company’s headquarters in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

(The Yomiuri Shimbun)