Re: [tlug] [OT] Questions about Employment in Japan

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Curt Sampson writes:

 > The visa will be no problem, if you're married. You can basically do any
 > work you like, as far as I know.

But you do have to get the visa, of course.  You're still a foreigner;
make sure you dot the i's and cross the t's, early.

 > > I am currently working towards an associates degree in Business
 > > Administration/Information Admin.  The degree program is more business
 > > based than Tech based, but it does mix the two.  
 > 
 > It sounds like a good degree to have.

Maybe.  I can't speak to the tech side except to note that most
explicit tech qualifications are "specialist" in the sense Curt
describes.

Regarding the business aspects, I have two cautionary stories.  I
taught at Humongous State University (Ohio SU) for 6 years, and for
four of them I taught the Microeconomics course for the MA in
Agricultural Economics program.  There were two stories in that class:
the students from Brazil who wondered why I never mentioned Marx, and
the Ohioans whose story went like this:

    I got into a good program at OSU and got a good degree in
    Marketing.  "I went downtown to look for a job"[1] and got a good
    job.  Four years later I had the same job, and went to ask my boss
    why I didn't get promoted.  He said, "what's your degree?"  I said
    "Marketing from OSU".  He said "Mine's economics" [he forgot to
    add "from Yale" ;-], and added "Mou wakatta daro!"

(Actually he said "you see my point.")  And that's how they got into
my class.

I also once asked my father (head of personnel for a $100 million
subsidiary of Norelco, not bad for 1978) about me getting an MBA.  He
said, "I don't hire them, except for accounting.  The second tier and
below graduates don't know anything useful, and the Harvard MBAs are
way too expensive for what they could do for my company."  The strong
implication was that MBAs ranked below professors on his scale of
"useful to society".  That had a lot to do with my choice of career!

Needless to say, he wouldn't touch an undergrad or associate business
major with a 10-foot waldo from behind leaded glass.  He wanted
history majors.  "You always can teach a writer accounting, but you
almost never succeed in teaching a business major to write.
Management talent doesn't seem to be related to major at all,
unfortunately."  The advice and attitude is dated, but I would still
say from recent experience and conversation with colleagues that what
you have studied in a business major makes you cannon fodder, hirable,
but insufficient to be promotable.  What gets you even your first
promotion is going to be mostly the "everything I need to know I
learned in kindergarten" stuff, plus a little bit of general education
past that.  (Of course the company-specific stuff you learn on the job
matters a lot; I'm simply cautioning about what you can expect to get
for your education as such.)

The point is that your degree's name may open the front door, but it
won't take you past the genkan, and if you depend on your degree,
you're likely to spend many years sitting by the shoebox.  AFAICT, all
business degrees except accounting are specialist degrees in the sense
that sometimes they are in demand in the market, but there's nothing
reliable about that from year to year.

While you're there, take all the accounting you can and still collect
the other requisites you need for graduation.  If you can afford the
time, pay extra tuition to take an overload to get more accounting
(including courses labeled "planning" and "corporate finance" as
basically accounting-related).  The money is sure to be worth it.
Remember, "figures don't lie, but liars sure can figure."  *Any*
obscure accounting fact you can remember could save your ass, or all
the asses in your department, some day.[2]  Not likely for any given
obscure fact, of course, but for sure knowing basic accounting will
allow you to scale a lot of obstacles.

Also, remember that in Japanese companies for "generalist" salarymen
(i.e., in "soumu"), your degree pretty much doesn't matter, but your
school will determine which companies will even talk to you, and often
strongly prejudices your future progress.  Collect meishi while you're
still a student, too!

 > I might look a bit more carefully into what "computer science"
 > is. It's not network security (which in the commonly used sense I'd
 > say is a "specialist" application), though computer science often
 > deals with network security.

Seconded.  Computer science != information technology != management
information systems.  (Unfortunately for our students my colleagues
either don't grok this or simply don't care at all.)

Most Japanese companies do not want people with an interest in their
subjects, only those with an appetite for doing assigned work.  My
department did a fascinatingly revolting study for Monkeyshow[3] two
years ago, about the introduction of a *one year*[sic] residential
Ph.D. program *across all subjects*.  There's very strong demand from
Japanese companies for this in the physical sciences and engineering.
They consider one-year loss of service the maximum "sabbatical" they
can afford for their most active worker bees in research, and they did
not give a shit whether the year produced any value-added in the
researcher, only that these degrees be offered by reputable research
universities.  Needless to say, they had no concern whatsoever for the
reputations of the universities or the real Ph.D.s granted....

 > > 2.  How hard is it to actually get a job.
 > 
 > Dead easy, if you start your own company. :-)
 > 
 > Actually, I would seriously consider that. If you have the
 > capability to start one and run one for a couple of years, even if
 > you get tired of it later, you can probably do a much wider range
 > of jobs than someone who can't do that.

On the other hand, the older you get (and in the Japanese entry-level
market, 25 is getting old; I don't know how your service might affect
that, my father always loved hiring veterans, but I doubt that applies
to Japan), the harder it will be to get a permanent job with a stable
employer.  The big companies do not generally value that kind of
maverick behavior (except in their own, revered founders, of course!)

 > BTW, you might want to consider using a spell-checker on a regular
 > basis.

Forget "consider".  Do it.  It's a cheap and easy way to put your best
foot forward.  Also, get a copy of Strunk & White's little book, _The
Elements of Style_.  The specifics of the style advised are somewhat
dated and idiosyncratic, but I don't know another book that packs as
much good advice on writing, while being fairly comprehensive, into
such a short space.

Similarly, work on your keigo.  It is an article of faith among
middle-aged to older Japanese that young people and foreigners can't
speak proper Japanese.  But for young Japanese the bar is high, while
for us foreigners, a little bit goes a long way, and every increment
counts heavily in your reputation for being a "real human being" here.


Footnotes: 
[1]  OK, old-timers, what's that from?

[2]  Because it can be used against you; if you understand it, you can
parry the bureaucratic threat.  Cf. Curt's comment about bosses not
necessarily being interested in advancing the business interests.

[3]  More commonly known as the "Ministry of Education, Science, and
Technology", but well, you know, shoes and fit....