Is anyone going to this next month?

I was originally planning to not bother going this year and leave it till 2011 when my Japanese will be more polished, but since then I've been invited to an interview with a certain company there. I just emailed to ask if they'd reimburse my travel expenses... if they don't I wouldn't feel good about investing so much time and money for one interview. Thus I'm scrambling now to try to arrange some other interviews there...

It might be worth it even if they don't reimburse your travel expenses. Five of my Japanese friends went there together last year, and I don't think any of them were even interviewed. However, they heavily networked and came back with a pile of business cards and all sorts of information on companies they're interested in. Now they're planning to return this year and hopefully get jobs this time around. If you were planning to go next year, then stopping by this year will most likely prime some opportunities for you.

Hmm, I've sent 2 or 3 more applications for interviews there, at the moment I'm just looking for an internship (graduation in 2012) so places I can apply are limited, but I'll try the networking thing, thanks.

I wish I could go (I even reserved a spot) but it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to afford to go

Have you applied for a travel scholarship? The deadline is 6th October.

Hmm... I think my Japanese is so deteriorated from last December that I should just give up :| I can only hope the US economy will pick up soon.

Thank you for the information though.

Has anyone been to the Tokyo Career Forum? I wonder what the size and atmosphere is in relation to the Boston Career Forum? I went to the BCF last year and didn't get any real interviews, but now I'm doing JET in Yamagata and want to check out the Tokyo one next time.

mikedough2 Wrote:Has anyone been to the Tokyo Career Forum? I wonder what the size and atmosphere is in relation to the Boston Career Forum? I went to the BCF last year and didn't get any real interviews, but now I'm doing JET in Yamagata and want to check out the Tokyo one next time.

Much smaller and the competition is much worse. You're competing against hundreds of tri and even quad-lingual Koreans and Chinese. Who all speak much better than 1級 Japanese.

Not to mention you will find that the vast majority of the companies recruiting in the Tokyo fair are looking for Chinese people for various expansions into China...It's a real downer. Unless you speak Chinese.

But something extra to consider....

With your JET experience I think you would have a much better chance of landing an interview if you went it back to the BCF. Did you have any significant time(reflected on your resume in Japan before the first BCF?

This might sound strange but I was pretty much told by a recruiter at BCF that a job candidate with 2級 level Japanese but experience/connection to Japan had better prospects than a candidate who passed 1級 but had never been to Japan.

Womacks23 Wrote:This might sound strange but I was pretty much told by a recruiter at BCF that a job candidate with 2級 level Japanese but experience/connection to Japan had better prospects than a candidate who passed 1級 but had never been to Japan.

I guess if you're hiring the candidate for the long haul it reduces the risk they're going to go "waugh, can't stand living here" after six months...

Hmm, they won't sponsor my expenses, looking online it'd be £657. (or £400+ including scholarship) So that means getting behind on university work and paying £657/£400+ for one interview and an opportunity to get some business cards (isn't company information all online anyway though?) |:

Then again, it's a dream job for me, so I suppose I should bite the bullet.

Don't go. You'd just be wasting a he'll of a lot of money. And IMO your citizenship wi hurt you at this particular fair with other companies.

Look for recruitment in the EU

Is that from personal experience? That's kind of what I kind of thought, though. It doesn't bode well when a large company isn't willing to pay for your travel expenses either...

Of course I am looking in the UK as well but it's not somewhere I want to live permanently so I'll need to job seek in Japan at some point. If I wait to get a spouse visa first it'll be too late to get into graduate schemes.

I wouldn't be too worried about them not paying for your expenses. Each company will be interviewing hundreds of candidates and will probably only pay for the people who are the top 5-10% on paper. Fortunately (cliché alert), interviews aren't conducted on paper, and graduate intakes can be variable. If you're a hot prospect, they won't shut the door because they've already filled X positions.

You graduate in 2012 and you're worried about a time when it'll be "too late" to apply for a graduate scheme? Chill out! People in their mid-20s and later start at graduate jobs. You can take part in Boston if you've graduated from a PhD scheme so unless you're approaching 30 and haven't worked a day in your life there's really nothing to worry about.

What I would say is that the competition level seems to very strong, and I'd only advise turning up if you think you're better than most other candidates. I watched the preview video and saw one Caucasian out of thousands of people. Those people are going to be very bilingual and probably very driven. It is aimed at overseas and second-generation Japanese, after all.

There's one of these job fairs in London in the Spring btw. Do you mind if I ask what your dream job is?

Well, it's an equities trading internship at UBS, basically anything well paid and located in Japan is a dream job to me though. Rather, I should say "realistic-dream job". My dream job would be being the next Dave Spector or a JAV director of course. (+ other even more unrealistic things)

I was thinking more along the lines of that particular industry, where graduate positions are typically closed off to people who graduated more than 2 years ago. Though, I'm also working towards IT/programming specialisation in my own time, so I can try my luck with that later on.

This particular job didn't actually explicitly require any Japanese ability, though I'm more or less business level myself. I'd imagine my academics are probably better than 90% of people there and I have programming skills, though I don't think I'm particularly competitive on the work experience front (ie. have none). Have to start somewhere though... because of that reason too I was intending on skipping the fair till 2011. Having a very driven acquaintance at university, I have to admit I'm not in the same league in that aspect.

With all that said, my dad seems insistant on me going, saying that just going for the experience is worth the expense, so I can't give him a valid excuse not to go.

UBS is a worldwide bank isn't it? They recruit from all over the world for all over the world. Flying to America to interview for a job in Japan seems counter-productive. If they hire you in London and you're fluent in Japanese they aren't going to send you off to Zürich.

They have a Japanese intern recruitment event in London in October (application deadline is today). Couldn't you just apply to that?

http://www.ubs.com/1/e/career_candidates...japan.html

Yeah, they just told me about that yesterday. I applied through their website for the internship in Japan (since it was one of the only companies of that nature I found that didn't expressedly require native Japanese), but then they asked me to interview in Boston...

"On a separate note, if you have not already done so, we encourage you to secure your place for our UK event below:

We will host a reception for UK-based students at our London office. The reception is open to those interested in summer 2011 internships, or in full-time positions in UBS Asia Pacific and is an effective way to fast-track your application. "

I'll apply to that, but they seem to still want me to meet them in Boston

http://www.ubs.com/1/e/career_candidates...vents.html

According to that page^ the deadline is the 5th, but I'll do it now.

http://forum.gaijinpot.com/showthread.ph...g-in-Japan

Hmm, found this, seems like it's not hopeless about the visa thing after all.

Hmm, flights are actually £384 if I return on the sunday, that's much more stomachable.

I get the impression that the above post is more self-aggrandizement than a genuine attempt to be helpful. "I went to Boston and got a job" is the gist of it.

The time line is interesting though: five years to finish high school and four years to finish his degree. So he was going to be at least 23 when he graduated, probably 24, possibly even 25 or above.

I'm sure you'll be fine come next year's fair dizmox. This year's is definitely a big gamble: if you get the job the travel expenses will be trivial, if you don't it'll hurt. I'd never tell someone not to go, but if I were you I wouldn't.

But then again successful people do tend to take a few risks...

I'm pretty lucky to have parents willing to pay for me (even insisting to) so I'll take the risk. I'll only miss 2 days of university actually so it's not so bad.

harhol Wrote:There's one of these job fairs in London in the Spring btw.

Details please

EDIT: Is Boston Career Forum where Khatzumoto found his Japan-based programming job?

EDIT2: to answer my own question, it's a cool story:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo...orum-story

http://www.careerforum.net/event/ldn/?lang=E

Not quite as prestigious as the Boston one but still a decent range of companies. And a job is a job... or rather, a visa is a visa.

Seeing as Square Enix now have an established European division I'm really hoping they come to the London fair next year. If not, well, still nothing to lose anyway.

The one in London only had 9 companies present last year it seems though... and usually most are requiring natives.

I booked my plane tickets and hotel today, actually the hotel prices were the biggest pill to swallow.

Just got back from that career event harhol posted. They pretty much said they don't discriminate based on applicant citizenship, and it's not an issue at all for them to sponsor visas. I'm sure for smaller companies this probably isn't the case though...

Having asked one of the recruiters, I was pleased to find out the interview will be in English (at least almost completely). They also said "why did you apply to division X? you'd be more suited to Y" which sort of bugged me, but oh well. Not worth worrying over.

I'll let you guys know how it goes in a week and a half. D:

Good luck!

Well, it turns out that I am going to this, actually.

I'm completely unprepared, my resume sucks, and I haven't applied anywhere online -- but I'm going.
I kind of passed over this thread like nothing, but then I got invited by a friend (well, I know 3 people going...) so I figured why not.

I guess I registered for the event, just not to any companies...Am I just wasting my time by going? How do they accept people just going up and saying "hey, i wanna work for you guys?"
I'd especially like that Bandai Games job -- Native English, basically 12 week programming internship with maybe full employment afterwards? This sounds like it was made for me, if they accept me in, that is...

But yeah, I'm completely unprepared. Extra hotel rooms, trip to boston with friends, potential employment = sounds like a fun trip to me.