When we first founded Daijob as a business in 1998, the Japanese economy was in a deep funk and many foreign firms were laying people off. It was indeed a challenge to be launching a recruiting business in this market! As we started to go out and do sales, we discovered two realities. Firstly, that although the market was downsizing, HR managers were...

I frequently get e-mail from people who are graduating from university or coming off a JET course, who are wondering what to do next. While you may have romantic notions of careers in international finance, design, or research, by and large these approaches require both an appropriate education and an ordained entry into an industry-related company. My guess is that...

A reader recently asked me some questions about procedures when it comes time to leave a job. I thought these might be interesting to share. As usual, I will make a disclaimer that I am not a legal professional, and if you decide to take a certain course of action based on my comments below, you need to get professional advice first before...

Shinsei Bank is an unusual mid-sized financial institution in Japan, in that it offers such a wide range of services, covering the Retail, Commercial, and Investment banking sectors. As such, the back office computing systems of the bank have to be flexible and responsive to change, at the same time as being extremely reliable and based on open...