While Japanese ability is required for most jobs in multinationals, and is certainly a strategic skill to have, there are nevertheless a number of job categories out there which do not require much more than basic “Where is the train station?” skills. Top of these would be of course English...

Have you ever wondered why you don't fit in at the office? Or why you have to work for a boss who knows less than you do, but some how gets the attention of senior management? Or maybe you have a really hot idea for the company to try out - but everyone is either too conservative, or too busy to care. Or maybe as a foreigner, female, or young person, you've hit a...

Tokyo is a strange place in a way, because often the senior level job market is not predicated by one's long-term experience but rather by one's skills and proximity. What I mean by that is that I have known a number of senior IT engineers who have gone on to become senior managers in major foreign firms. The reason of course is simple, with the buoyant job market right now, there is a lack of...

I’ve focused a lot on early-stage job finding recently, so let’s now look at career improvement opportunities. This week for senior IT engineers. Software and network engineers in their 30’s are at the peak of the earning and performance curve. They are usually remunerated as a function of their knowledge, experience, and customer interaction skills. Technical knowledge in particular is something that drives most engineers that I know, and most people spend a lot of time...