Blogs and Articles from Third Way Forum Membrs

・ In the US, students are often hired for two distinct purposes. One is to be developed in a specific field as a professional. The other one is to be developed as a future leader based on their leadership potential.

・ In Germany, students are hired based on what they majored in. In some subjects, internship is a mandatory part of their education. So when they are looking for a job, they are at least educated and trained enough to do an entry level of a professional job. They are not hired for a vague purpose. Even if they are not expected to do the real job, the education background supports to get productive soon.

・ In Japan, students join universities for a brand name and do not study after joining. Then they also join companies for a brand name and are happy at first because it makes their parents happy and they get a social status. But then they realize after they join, their job is not so great and they have no power over their career any more. New grads who join a Japanese company soon get bonded by misery. It’s almost like a brotherhood forged by misery which creates some kind of peer pressure to each other so that nobody escapes from this hell.

・ Quite often doctors become doctors not because they wanted but simply because their parents wanted them to be. The same with lawyers. Their parents wanted them to be lawyers. In the same way, most Japanese people joined big Japanese companies simply because of social pressure. Without any alternative voice advising them to find their own path, they blindly follow others to join a company as new grads then end up doing something completely different from what they really want to do. It’s so important to think seriously about what they want to do before joining a company. Otherwise, they will join the brotherhood of misery right away after graduation.

・ The greatest problem is that most Japanese students seem to hear no alternative voice to the orthodox one urging them all to join companies as new grads. So they don’t think they have any other choice.

・ Global-minded universities are using some kind of career navigation tools to help out students to clarify what they want to do. But Japanese universities do not even find a need for such a tool.

・ However, thanks to the technological development, companies can now clarify requirements and job descriptions of each role and clarify the candidate profile much more precisely. When this job clarification is properly done, maybe some companies can start hiring new grads for real jobs instead of just hiring them as a new grad cohort.

・ The question is how much students really know what they want to do in their early 20’s. Probably not so much. But even if they don’t know, at least they should think much more seriously about their life aspirations, strengths and start building some kind of professional knowledge and skills to a certain level while they are still students. In Japanese universities. Students are often just aimlessly spending time to play around with friends. If they play around, they should do so for some meaningful purpose for their future.

・ It seems that Japanese universities do not think it is their job to prepare students for a real professional job, and Japanese students do not think it is their job to own their career and make their own decision. And therefore, Japanese companies think it is their job to decide what to do with new grads and they think they have the absolute power to decide what each employee should do at a certain point of time purely based on the company needs.

・ Many people get an impression that Japanese students come across rather as childish or immature as compared with young people at the same age in other countries. Even if they do not have enough professional experiences, they should have at least some level of life experiences. Many Japanese students are suffering from a serious lack of self-confidence and they appear super unconfident which makes the global audience uncomfortable.

・ Too much sense of loyalty is working negatively for young people. They feel obligated to stick to the company they joined as new grads even if they realize soon that that’s not where they want to be. They find it difficult to quit anytime soon.

・ Because of the entrance exam culture in Japan, failing the exam is something Japanese students are most afraid of. As a result, when they grow up, they are still very risk-averse. However, failing and failing fast is necessary and should be encouraged in order to create a culture of innovation. No wonder there is not so much innovation coming from Japanese companies lately.

・ The Japanese education system is preparing students for exams very well but hardly doing anything helpful to prepare them for real life. It’s time for students to wake up to the fact that both schools and companies are not helping them in Japan so they need to help themselves to find their own path. They should find their alternative teacher! Maybe people like us from Third Way Forum!

・ As a consequence, Japanese are not trained to re-evaluate their own situation and career. Instead of changing the job, often they stay with a sort of never-give-up mindset.