Typically graduating students in Japan begin their job-hunting process in the fall in their junior year, and spend around six months to a year searching for the best employer. The state of economy certainly has has impact on the job market too. According to Nikkei, the job openings to applications ratio for big companies with over 5,000 employees is as small as 0.60. But an interesting student recruiting service is trying to lend them a hand. It’s called Wild Card, and it just recently launched in beta. With this new service, which is integrated with Facebook, students and employers can find a better match faster and easier. Students can start by connecting to their Facebook account and upload proof of the job offers they have received, such as an email or some sort of document. After careful screening, other companies using Wild Card can search for promising students, and seeing that they have already passed one screening process, they can reach out to them knowing the student has already met the initial criteria. In this way, talented students can skip the hassle of filling out endless application forms, taking recruiting tests, and doing group interviews. The founder of Wild Card,…
Typically graduating students in Japan begin their job-hunting process in the fall in their junior year, and spend around six months to a year searching for the best employer. The state of economy certainly has has impact on the job market too. According to Nikkei, the job openings to applications ratio for big companies with over 5,000 employees is as small as 0.60.
But an interesting student recruiting service is trying to lend them a hand. It’s called Wild Card, and it just recently launched in beta.
With this new service, which is integrated with Facebook, students and employers can find a better match faster and easier. Students can start by connecting to their Facebook account and upload proof of the job offers they have received, such as an email or some sort of document. After careful screening, other companies using Wild Card can search for promising students, and seeing that they have already passed one screening process, they can reach out to them knowing the student has already met the initial criteria. In this way, talented students can skip the hassle of filling out endless application forms, taking recruiting tests, and doing group interviews.
The founder of Wild Card, Tairo Moriyama, further elaborates:
From my experience in HR, I thought it would be great if competent students with job offers from one company could skip the early recruiting process with other companies. Because the recruiting of brilliant new graduates is very competitive, some students feel pressured to commit to one company after receiving a job offer. But students should be allowed to see other options and figure out what’s best for them.
The site plans to go public in May and has already seen 500 students register in the first week. Wild Card is a great idea, in my view, because one job offer opens many doors to other potential jobs, and for students who live in the suburbs it will save them a lot of time and money.
Wild Card is convenient for companies too, because students on the site have already passed screening by other companies, making the recruiting process more efficient. The service uses a performance-based fee model, charging the company if the prospect is hired.
Wild Card has plans to release a mid-career version in the near future, so stay tuned for that as well.
This article is based on an interview published on our Japanese-language site (see part one and two). It has been partially modified for our global audience. Lancers, CrowdWorks Employment in Japan has traditionally been a cradle-to-grave sort of system, but given modern day economic challenges, many people are facing difficulties. Many workers are faced with finding alternatives when the notion of a full-time job doesn’t work out. Recent government statistics show that 94% of 4.5 million Japanese companies only have a single office. Larger companies with more than 10 offices across multiple locations only account for 0.4% of all Japanese business. But in which category of business do most employees fall under? 31% of the entire national workforce belongs to the 0.4% of big companies. Out of the entire Japanese workforce of 62.3 million people, 55 million of those are employed by someone else, and 7 million people are self-employed or working with their family businesses [1]. These figures show that many workers are concentrated among a very small number of big companies here in Japan. Given that this distribution will likely not change soon, how can Japanese workers prepare for what will happen to the national economy in the future? Being a so-called ‘crowdsourced’ worker…
This article is based on an interview published on our Japanese-language site (see part one and two). It has been partially modified for our global audience.
Lancers, CrowdWorks
Employment in Japan has traditionally been a cradle-to-grave sort of system, but given modern day economic challenges, many people are facing difficulties. Many workers are faced with finding alternatives when the notion of a full-time job doesn’t work out.
Recent government statistics show that 94% of 4.5 million Japanese companies only have a single office. Larger companies with more than 10 offices across multiple locations only account for 0.4% of all Japanese business.
But in which category of business do most employees fall under? 31% of the entire national workforce belongs to the 0.4% of big companies. Out of the entire Japanese workforce of 62.3 million people, 55 million of those are employed by someone else, and 7 million people are self-employed or working with their family businesses [1].
These figures show that many workers are concentrated among a very small number of big companies here in Japan. Given that this distribution will likely not change soon, how can Japanese workers prepare for what will happen to the national economy in the future?
Being a so-called ‘crowdsourced’ worker is an alternative solution when it comes to finding employment. Crowdsourcing (in the context of this discussion) is a concept that matches task requests with individuals who can do the work. The most notable examples of this process are US-based services oDesk and Elance. These days some people can even make a living from such jobs.
Mr. Akiyoshi says that with his Lancers service, some workers can earn as much as 7 or 8 million yen ($70,000 to $80,000).
The traditional concept of crowdsourcing has been that someone in a remote location helps you finish minor tasks at an affordable rate. But recently platforms like Lancers are being used for more, serving as a primary income stream for some. Mr. Akiyoshi shared a few key indicators from his platform:
The platform is home to 120,000 freelancers from all around Japan.
1,000 of those users are earning about 50,000 yen (approximately $500) a month
70% of users reside in suburban areas or countryside.
Some people make more than 3 million yen (about $30,000) using the platform. Needless to say, that’s enough to make a living.
There are now about 10,000 tasks listed on the platform, three times the amount of tasks listed last year.
Akiyoshi adds:
We saw the rapid growth since 2011. Our operations have expanded from two people in 2008, to 11 people in 2011, to the 30-person team we have now.
Helping people work regardless of geographical location is the startup’s concept. And true to that notion, Lancer itself is based in the quiet Tokyo suburb of Kamakura, where they can concentrate more on the service development.
Recently they are seeing a decent number of task proposals including jobs like copywriting, proposal writing, web design, or sales outsourcing.
With the platform, Akiyoshi hopes to contribute to creating a world where people can find good work and better living.
CrowdWorks: An opportunity to work and live better ¶
CrowdWorks’ CEO Koichiro Yoshida
CrowdWorks is another key player in this field, and its website features many voices from people who use the platform. When I asked CrowdWorks’ CEO Koichiro Yoshida if crowdsourced work has become a mainstream working style, he answered me by relating the following story from a housewife who lives in Tokushima Prefecture and uses their app.
I’m glad to see a world I’ve never seen before, getting in touch with the interests of the younger generation. I’m also amazed that the platform provides us with equal accessibility to tasks regardless of where we live. I retired and moved to the countryside but the platform gives me the great opportunity to keep working at home.
For most people, their daily work is more than just earning money. It’s also a means of giving your life a sense of purpose. Crowdsourcing can help them find such a purpose in their lives as well.
Every worker has a preferred style for working. And CEO Yoshida says that freelancers can pursue a sort of career optimization in finding the projects that best suit their needs and style.
Take for example, PC operating systems. These days we have many choices ranging from licensed systems (like Windows or Mac) to open source (Linux) systems. Likewise, people employed at governmental offices or big companies can be seen as a ‘licensed’ way of working. What we’re proposing is to develop an open source way of working. Some people use the platform to finding a side job, and others use it to making a living. It’s meaningless to try to figure out which is the better route, but what’s important is give people more options, more ways to work.
The service was launched in March of 2012, and has acquired more than 5,000 corporate clients who are posting jobs on the platform. So far projects worth more than $12 million have been matched in the year since the launch. Back in last October, Crowdworks raised a total amount of $3.75 million (300 million yen) from Itochu Technology Ventures, Digital Garage, and Suneight Investment, with aiming to expand their business in the South East Asian region.
Working styles changed after the 2011 earthquake
We’ve asked the both startups about why the Japanese crowdsourcing market has been on an upswing during the last few years. Both Akiyoshi and Yoshida say that it appears to have stemmed from the tragic 2011 earthquake. That disaster also encouraged several Japanese crowdfunding sites to launch as well.
Akiyoshi pointed out that the disaster might have triggered the recent boom in the crowdsourcing market. It has brought us newly-coined phrases like ‘nomad working,’ and it has prompted many companies to permit their employees to work from home.
These crowdsourcing startups are presenting a fascinating alternative to conventional working styles in Japan, and in the process they are creating an employment ecosystem that’s helping many individual workers face the challenges of our current economy.
Dragon Gate is a job matching site that connects foreign students to Japanese companies. It was recently launched by Future Design Lab, a career consultancy based in Tokyo. Japanese business customs could potentially be a difficult obstacle for foreign students looking to work with Japanese companies. The consultancy helps them overcome this in a few ways, including helping in the creation of a CV as well as advising how to choose the right company to work with. The most interesting feature of Dragon Gate is that the service allows students to upload an 30- to 60-second introductory video clip for free. This video lets them showcase themselves on a prominent stage, and it enables Japanese talent seekers to easily assess the candidate’s level of Japanese proficiency as well as their business manner prior to hiring. Japanese streaming platform operator J-Stream provides the video solution for the website.. With these notable functions, the consultancy expects to help many foreign students find placements in Japanese companies. So if you’re a student or a recent graduate looking to find work in Japan, you might want to sign up!
Dragon Gate is a job matching site that connects foreign students to Japanese companies. It was recently launched by Future Design Lab, a career consultancy based in Tokyo.
Japanese business customs could potentially be a difficult obstacle for foreign students looking to work with Japanese companies. The consultancy helps them overcome this in a few ways, including helping in the creation of a CV as well as advising how to choose the right company to work with.
The most interesting feature of Dragon Gate is that the service allows students to upload an 30- to 60-second introductory video clip for free. This video lets them showcase themselves on a prominent stage, and it enables Japanese talent seekers to easily assess the candidate’s level of Japanese proficiency as well as their business manner prior to hiring. Japanese streaming platform operator J-Stream provides the video solution for the website..
With these notable functions, the consultancy expects to help many foreign students find placements in Japanese companies. So if you’re a student or a recent graduate looking to find work in Japan, you might want to sign up!
employment 
Yukari Mitsuhashi
With this new service, which is integrated with Facebook, students and employers can find a better match faster and easier. Students can start by connecting to their Facebook account and upload proof of the job offers they have received, such as an email or some sort of document. After careful screening, other companies using Wild Card can search for promising students, and seeing that they have already passed one screening process, they can reach out to them knowing the student has already met the initial criteria. In this way, talented students can skip the hassle of filling out endless application forms, taking recruiting tests, and doing group interviews.
Takeshi Hirano
Masaru Ikeda
