Accounting or Marketing Jobs?

[joibi79]

Hello, does anyone know how difficult it is to land a job in accounting or marketing in Japan? I will be graduating with a bachelor's in Marketing but I do have 1 year of experience doing Accounts Payable work. I was also wondering if it really is an advantage to have a Level 1 Japanese Proficiency Certificate or a Japanese Business Proficiency Certificate (I think it's called JETRO?) Thanks for any input.

[trip_hop]

It will be challenging for you - no language and no real experience.

Who do you want to work for? Foreign or Japanese company?

For accounting, you should really have a CPA or equiv, plus language skills.

For marketing, at least 5 years experience plus language.

Ask yourself, would you trust your company's products or services to someone like you? No knowledge of local market, no experience, no language skills.

Your degree, well, it will satisfy Immigration, but would hardly satisfy an employer. They are generally looking for someone who can work straight away, needs no extra training, and can stand living and working in a foreign country with minimal support. Preferably with some specialist skills or unique experience that will assist them.

Get some real experience in the real world, visit Japan and see what it is like for real, develop your language to a much higher level, then try again.

Good luck

[For ALL]

does anyone know how difficult it is to land a job in accounting or marketing in Japan?

I believe it all depends on your determination. I worked for a Japanese company in the role of international business development. Having a post-graduate degree in marketing (obtained by correspondence from NZ while working for them full-time) I wanted to utilise my skills and become a marketing manager. As the company did not have a marketing department, I continued pushing until one got created, and I became it's manager (aged 30 then). After some time in that position I realised that I can achieve much more in life by doing my own thing, so I resigned and started my own company.

If you find an interesting job without marketing responsibilities, I am sure you can still create marketing projects to work on and enjoy your marketing. Before that marketing dept got created, I was quite heavily involved in marketing of some non-profit organisations.

>>I was also wondering if it really is an advantage to have a Level 1 Japanese Proficiency Certificate or a Japanese Business Proficiency Certificate (I think it's called JETRO?)

Well, it might not hurt, but depends pretty much on the company. I have found that there are more companies that are not aware of those tests than those who are aware. So it might be better to impress them with your work projects from previous jobs or university, rather than test certificates. And if you do show them Level 1, watch out as you might get asked to do complicated language tasks, and if you are uncapable, you might get yourself into an awkward situation.

Good luck!

Natalia @ For ALL
Director
For ALL Co., Ltd.

[swordfishtrombone]

for Marketing, being a new grad, you have limited opps, but if you speak japanese well enough, you might get lucky in lower-level positions or at market research firms. check out JMRA (http://www.jmra-net.or.jp/index-e.html) for a list of MR companies.

accounting is much more difficult i think, as certification/country rules vary. however, i have heard that recently some financial firms (eg, Lehmann Bros, Morgan Stanley, etc.) are hiring back room analysts to handle growing business in bonds and real estate. might be some need for accounting, don't know for sure....