Foreign capital companies operating in Japan often have flaws in their hiring processes and decision making, generally stemming from the lack of experience an expat from HQ has with the new culture and subsequent insecurity in dealing with local business practices. That difficulty is compounded, when expat managers attempt to surmount their inevitable snafus by precise replication of the environments and business styles successful at headquarters back home. Below are the most common pitfalls foreign capital firms experience in their recruiting processes and how to overcome them.
Prioritizing English Skills over Job Skills:
This is, without a doubt, the biggest error foreign managers make when recruiting in Japan. Most people prefer working with colleagues or associates who share a common language. Doing so imparts a sense of trust and familiarity often lacking in the daily life of a new expat to Japan. Effective reporting relationships are critically important, and therefore new hires’ foreign language ability is sometimes not merely useful but necessary. Too often, however, foreign managers base recruiting decisions on prospective new hires’ foreign languages skills—to be sure, their ability in English—rather than on their actual business skills and accomplishments. Further complicating matters, there are numerous job changers who mask a lack of business skills with relatively smooth language capability. In short, the key for an effective hire should not be “how good is this person’s English?” but rather, “are we communicating effectively?”
Solutions to this hiring pitfall start with setting clear, measurable job specifications for the roles, functions, and tasks envisioned for the position(s) in question, regardless of language ability. Be sure to have your local staff also interview candidates, whether or not you can communicate with potential employees in your native language. Reference checks, of course, should be de rigueur. All this will keep focus on the candidate’s suitability for the job, and as important, reduce the chance of resentment within your existing team in Japan. A segment of employees working for foreign firms resent incapable leaders hired just because of their English skills. Finally, consider this: What if your new leader is actually already on your staff but was overlooked for lack of perfect English? Save on recruiting fees and increase company morale! Promote internally, and invest in the foreign language education of your staff (and yourself)!
Accurate and Realistic Job Specs:
Occasionally, positions within companies go unfilled despite a desperate need to fill them. While Japan is unquestionably a challenging place for recruiters, positions quite often remain unfilled because job specs tend to be only vaguely defined, thereby becoming a “moving target” for recruiters. The fault here lies with both recruiter and hiring manager. The recruiter is obligated to advise the hiring manager when the job specs are too vague and/or unrealistic for the market situation. For example, northern European companies tend to value technical degrees for commercial leadership roles, though, in Japan, crossing over from technical to commercial track is not common. Conversely, due to job rotations within Japanese companies, some commercial-track people might have exposure to technical roles that often provide more relevant OJT technical experience than a degree received 20 years prior.
Ultimately, the job spec is a balance of capability vs. priority: What is right for your company and is your expectation realistic for the talent available in Japan. Here are some critical action steps. Seek out the advice of those most successful within your local organization and ask about what in their background makes them successful. In addition, seek out experienced recruiters and ask about what type of job specification they would recommend for the type of person you are seeking. In the mix of what you feel you need, what your local staff say, and what your recruiter recommends, you will find the most practical answer.
Awaiting the Perfect Candidate:
One potential drawback of focusing so much on creating the perfect job spec is that it can lead an organization to wait for the perfect candidate to come along. Many companies become paralyzed in their hiring process when they seek someone who is a 100% match in terms of qualifications, rather than seek someone who can realistically perform the job. Consider this: if a candidate were a perfect match for your company’s job specification, with all the knowledge and applicable experience, what room would that person have to grow and learn within your company?
Organizations would usually be better served by setting specifications to attract employees who can grow into a given role. By selecting such a candidate, companies can find aggressively minded employees, eager to learn, and probably for less cost than the “perfect” candidate (who may not even exist) in the original spec.
No Japan Strategy:
Japanese job changers appreciate employers that have done their homework on Japan and will prioritize employment with those companies that have a clear strategy demonstrating their understanding of the challenges here. Unfortunately, foreign managers are often sent to Japan to implement a business model that works at home and other foreign markets, but with no Japan specific strategy. To make things worse, many foreign managers strictly micromanage their staff to replicate the business model used at headquarters. Potential candidates for a company can be turned off from employment quickly, if rumors abound that they cannot leverage their knowledge and creativity and, especially, if attention has not been paid to the nuances and opportunities in Japan.
The solution? Develop a Japan-specific strategy but be prepared to adjust it based on your contact with your new employees and local business environment. Do your homework on Japan.
Job Applicants vs Executive Search Candidates:
Japan is among the hardest places in the world to recruit top talent and requires a change in mindset from “screening applicants” to “courting future employees.” An assumption is often made that in a market as big as Japan, there should be a limitless number of candidates for each job opening. As Japan has few English speakers and few candidates who qualify as proactive based on Western standards, courting candidates is necessary. Many job specifications for candidates are just that – specifications – which fail to “sell” potential job changers on future employers. Job specifications looking more like demand planning can blunt the enthusiasm of many candidates.
Providing a clear, coherent PR message to potential job changers within your job spec, though, pays dividends beyond the potential employment of the immediate applicant. Those applicants will share their new knowledge and message of your company with their same-industry colleagues and business partners, making it easier to convince other potential employees in the future to join your company, because they have already heard the message before from the market. Particularly in Japan, such consistency of tone is critical for long-term hiring success.
No Career Path
It is no mystery why many Japanese seek work with foreign firms; bottlenecks to promotion in an aging society make moving up the corporate ladder virtually impossible in many Japanese companies. In their efforts to attract talent, foreign companies often fail to present this huge selling point.
Creating a clear career path can be the greatest motivator for someone to consider joining a company – more so than immediate salary. Potential overseas assignments for a year or more can be another way Japanese will find fulfillment within your company. Creating a culture of long-term employment based on transparent and proactive promotion can make your company the employer of choice in a market where talent is becoming scarcer.
Companies should also consider this: If there is no career path for newly hired mid-career employees, what does that say about the company’s growth strategy?
Get References
While it is common sense in many countries, GET REFERENCES ON POTENTIAL HIRES. Because of the stigma often linked to job changes and therefore difficulty of finding references in Japan, it is not uncommon for reference checks to happen after the candidate’s acceptance of a job offer. That is certainly late, but it is still critical to GET THOSE REFERENCES.
Aside from the obvious benefit of confirming the background of a potential employee for a given role, reference checks also have added benefits such as finding new potential employees and business contacts, and they also give you a chance to let more people know about your company in Japan. If a potential employee balks at providing a reference, it is best to drop them from the process. It is not uncommon to hear it said that “reference checks are not performed in Japan because Japanese are honest.” Regardless of local standards, references are the simplest form of risk management a company has to ensure it is making a good hire.