As promised, I will continue to open up my casebook of job enquiries, so that readers can have a reference to some real-world situations. Today's case is "Nigel" who is a Lotus software developer looking to come and work in Japan for the first time. Nigel is a US citizen who has been interested in Japan since he was a teenager. He studied Japanese in college for several years and even did a semester of study in Japan, though feels that his languages skills have become pretty rusty. Nigel has been a Lotus...

Japan's direct and indirect taxation levels for companies are among the highest in the world, and foreign senior managers often wonder how Japanese companies can survive. In actual fact of course, the overheads are hitting everyone really hard, but there are some tricks that can help you reduce your employee overheads significantly. The one I want to talk about specifically today is staff housing. After the Second World War...

One of the most difficult jobs for the foreign CEO of an organization in Japan is finding trusted, capable, and effective right-hand men (or women) to assist with operations and the general affairs of running a company, i.e. a COO or CIO. If you have the cash and a mandate from Head Office, it is possible to make a focused and...

Thanks to good exposure on the Internet, I regularly get enquiries from people asking for additional advice about their personal situation. I welcome the email, but would ask that people follow some simple rules of engagement: 1. Please always send your resume (not photos) with your first...