Tag: Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ

What Japanese banks, trading companies look for in graduate hiring

The graduate hiring process in Japan reaches a peak towards the end of the year, as the naitei (informal offers) from the big firms have mostly been issued, and the smaller firms and the unlucky graduates desperately try to find solace in each others’ arms.  The process is meant to start in April, when students put on identical suits and attend countless company presentations and interviews, thereby pretty much wiping the final year out in terms of getting any studying done.  Japan’s universities mostly function on the American credit system, so there is not the pressure of ‘finals’ as you get in British universities, however Japan’s academics regularly complain about the damage done to the educational experience by the system.   There have been attempts to move the start date to August, so that students can do some studying in the first term, but unfortunately, with a shortage of skilled labour, it’s too tempting for most firms not to try to buck the system.

The Nikkei Business magazine ran a series in December to guide students through the process, explaining what financial services companies and trading companies are looking for and offering.  I thought I would share it, as it gives a flavour of the corporate culture of these elite employers who are active outside Japan.  I was interested to see how much better paid on average the trading companies’ recruits are than the financial services companies, and that a global mindset is mentioned regularly amongst the financial services, but not by the trading companies – presumably a global outlook is taken for granted.

In terms of overseas experience, the Nikkei says that some of the bigger banks send out several hundred people a year to overseas postings, and this is not just to support Japanese companies overseas, but increasingly to build business with local companies too.  English ability is not compulsory, but likely to be offered as training after entry.

The image of trading company employees is that they have to be able to speak English, are strong drinkers and sporty.  The trading companies themselves say English ability is not compulsory and there are even some naitei offers to people who don’t have a passport.  However all trading companies point out that they usually expect one of the three rotations in the first 10 or so years to be overseas.  The trading companies say it is not necessary to drink, but obviously it’s a bit awkward if your counterpart is a brewery.  Sportiness is not actively sought, but it’s true that on campus recruitment by employees may well focus on students who were in the same club as them.

Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ

Offers naitei to 1300 graduates, starting salary is Y205,000 (around £1200) a month. Average salary of all employees is Y7.91m (around £46K). They are looking for healthy curiousity, and eagerness to take up challenges

Mizuho Financial Group

Offers naitei to 1920 graduates.  Starting salary the same as BTMU. Average salary of all employees is Y7.38m (around £43K).  They are looking for intellectual curiousity, a global mindset and dynamism.

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking

Offers naitei to 1800 graduates.  Starting salary the same as BTMU and Mizuho. Average salary of all employees is Y8.79m (£51K).  They are looking for people who are good at building relationships and have a global awareness.

Nomura

Offers naitei to 600 graduates.  Starting salary is Y232,300 a month (£1350).  Average salary of all employees is Y11.93m (£69K).  They are looking for people with ambition, honesty and flexibility.

Daiwa

Offers naitei to around 690 graduates. Starting salary is Y240,000 a month (£1395). Average salary of all employees is Y10.02m (£58K). They are also looking for honesty but also a strong spirit of enquiry

Sompo Japan Nipponkoa

Offers naitei to around 750 graduates.  Starting salary is Y237,860 a month (£1383).  Average salary of all employees is Y6.6m  (£38K).  SJNK is looking for “ability to stand on your own feet”

 

Trading companies:

Itochu

Offers naitei to around 142 graduates (out of 7000 applications). Starting salary is Y240,000 (£1395). Average salary of all employees is Y13.95m (£81K).  They are looking for honesty and optimism

Mitsubishi Corporation

Offers naitei to around 160 graduates (out of 6000 applications).  Starting salary is the same as the other trading companies.  Average salary of all employees is Y13.75m (£80K). They are looking for trustworthiness, strength and intellectual ability.

Mitsui

Offer naitei to around 120-150 graduates (out of 6000 applications). Same starting salary as the other trading companies.  Average salary of all employees is Y13.61m (£79K).  They are looking for intellectual curiosity, ambition, ability to develop yourself

Sumitomo Corporation

Offer naitei to around 130 graduates (out of 7000 applications).  Same starting salary as the others.  Average salary of all employees is Y13m (£76K).  They are looking for ability to innovate, execute and collaborate

Marubeni

Offer naitei to around 122 graduates (out of 7700 applications).  Same starting salary as the others.  Average salary of all employees is Y13.06m (£76K).  They are looking for people who stand up for themselves and don’t run away (!)

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Does having more women managers help Japanese companies globalise?

The question of whether having more women managers would help Japanese companies to globalise was raised, but not discussed in depth due to time constraints, at a dinner I attended, hosted by a delegation to the UK from Japan Women’s Innovative Network – a Japanese non profit organisation.  An impressively large number of younger women (70) had been sponsored by their companies to come to the UK for a week, visiting various UK companies such as British Telecom and AON, to study global leadership and diversity.

My view is yes, it does help Japanese companies to globalise if they have more (Japanese) women managers, for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, it helps Japanese companies and corporate culture seem less “alien” to Western companies if there are more women in management positions in the headquarters, and secondly, because the adjustments Japanese companies will have to make in order to incorporate a more diverse Japanese workforce (gender or other diversity) will help them be more inclusive of “non-Japanese” diverse groups.  Attitudes to overtime and working from home would be a couple of areas needing adjustment I would suggest.

On the first point, the question of the role of women in Japanese companies is frequently raised in the cultural awareness sessions we conduct in Europe for Japanese companies.  Japan never does well in surveys of the position of women in society – see the most recent World Economic Forum Gender Gap report, placing Japan 114th out of 144 countries (updated for 2017).  While you can question the methodology of such surveys, then along comes another one, conducted amongst Japanese women, showing that 1/3 of them want to be full time housewives.

Which leads me to point out in our training (and in the Advancing Gender Diversity day I spoke at for Hitachi’s European group companies – presentation on SlideShare here) that Confucian values remain strong in Japan – it’s not that women are seen as somehow less capable than men, more that there are expectations around the role they should fulfil in society.

Prime Minister Abe is trying to square a circle with Abenomics, by trying to raise the birthrate but at the same time encourage women to go back to work – aiming to have 30% of senior positions in all parts of society, by 2020, through improving childcare and parental leave.  But with the amount of pressure on women to be good housewives and stalwarts of the Parent Teachers Association, no amount of improved childcare and leave is going to counteract this or compensate for both parents doing overtime until late at night.

Although the Japanese government can directly change the economy with the first and second arrow of Abenomics, through fiscal and monetary actions, the third arrow of structural reform requires nudging, or even shaming Japanese companies into doing the right thing – legislation alone will be hard to push through and even harder to enforce.  So Abe launched in February the “Nadeshiko” * scheme, recognising firms which are making efforts to improve the working environment for women.

Firms given the Nadeshiko “brand” in February of this year include Kao, Nissan, Fast Retailing (Uniqlo) and Daikin.  The scheme is not the only initiative taking place – various other surveys have been done of best places for women to work and the Hitachi Gender Diversity Day was partly inspired by the President of Hitachi, Hiroaki Nakanishi, declaring recently that the company aims to more than double the number of women managers by 2020.

Other recent surveys have named Benesse (no coincidence that the founder of Benesse is also the founder of J-WIN) as the most career friendly for women and companies such as Toshiba, KDDI, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ and NTT have all announced targets for women managers.  The Nikkei group has also jumped on the bandwagon, with a seminar series aimed at aspiring women managers (and even has a magazine “Nikkei Woman” ) and published its ranking last year of best places for women to work, which put foreign companies at the top (IBM Japan, Procter & Gamble) along with 2 life insurance companies, Takashimaya department store, Daiwa Securities, Sony, Panasonic, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ, Fujitsu and Sharp.

* Nadeshiko is a type of pink danthius flower associated with women in Japan. It was adopted as a nickname by the women’s soccer team of Japan on its way to becoming the first Asian team to win the World Cup, in 2011.

The original version of this article was published in Japanese in the Teikoku Databank News in 2014.  An English version of it appears in Pernille Rudlin’s new book  “Shinrai: Japanese Corporate Integrity in a Disintegrating Europe” is available as a paperback and Kindle ebook on  Amazon.

For more content like this, subscribe to the free Rudlin Consulting Newsletter. 最新の在欧日系企業の状況については無料の月刊Rudlin Consulting ニューズレターにご登録ください。

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