Everybody Wants To Be a CEO

August 26th, 2010By Category: Work Tips

The Wall Street Journal, via its Japan Real Time blog, has an interesting post that looks at both the effect that newspapers still have in Japan and the current situation in the job market.

Japanese company U-shin recently posted a job ad in two major newspapers looking for a new CEO. The company is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and is primarily active in the auto-parts industry. In their ad, they stated that they were looking for someone who was young, energetic, fluent in English and ready to take advantage of a rapidly globalizing Japanese economy. The company was offering an annual salary of over $400,000 and was open to people of either gender and any nationality.

As Japan Real Time reports, the 1,722 applications that they received came from a variety of places including existing CEOs of other companies, departments of the central government and plenty of foreigners as well.

Why did the company go down the path of taking out full page ads in Japan’s top 2 newspapers? Well, according to their press officer, it was down to the fact that traditional head hunting and seeking out potential candidates from within its work force was not turning up anybody with suitable skills in English and confidence in dealing with a worldwide clientele.

As the blog goes on, the company is one of the few in Japan that has actually abandoned the traditional system of hiring simply based on age and seniority and instead emphasizes its own meritocracy. This does, however, mean that performance of the CEO is strictly monitored by the directors and if he/she fails to deliver (mostly by not bringing in overseas contracts), then they will be shown the door.

We have covered some of the other moves recently by Japanese companies to internationalize themselves here, here and here. There are lots of folks out there who are fast developing their Japanese ability – and if you keep an eye out, plenty of opportunities are springing up out there.

Photo credit: Joi / Flikr

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GaijinPot

GaijinPot is an online community for foreigners living in Japan, providing information on everything you need to know about enjoying life here, from finding a job and accommodation to having fun.

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