Job hunting in Japan: Step 1 - Look pretty

[Gold Digger]

This is no joke and I don't know how many people stateside know this. In Japan, 4th year university students start job hunting close to the end of the year to try and secure a job around the March/April time-frame. It's a super competitive situation as well as you have a crazy amount of soon-to-be-graduated students hitting the bricks all about the same time.


BUT...did you know that your skills and qualifications aren't the most important part for even having your resume looked at?

Over here, there is a generalized resume form that you fill out when applying for a job. It's not like the U.S. where you make your own and list things in a specific order. Here, you can go to any convenience store, pick up a pack of resume forms and you just fill in the blanks under the required fields.

You know:
Name
Age
D.O.B.
Address
Schooling
etc...

At the very top, there is a place to attach a picture, usually the size of a passport photo.

This is where this news article from The Daily Yomiuri's English language website comes in.
Job-hunting students primp for success

It says in the article that, "Male and female students are taking classes on how to dress appropriately, and having professional photos taken with makeup so their resumes will pass the first stage of applicant screening."

Yep, that's right. Your qualifications and education mean nothing because the first thing they look at is your picture.

I wonder how many better qualified people have had their resumes thrown out just because they didn't look all Rico Suave?

Discuss...

[300ZXttZMAN]

Wow thats wierd. Take a picture of the resume that you buy and post it up so we can see it..

Post a before you fill it out picture and an after picture!

[alms24sebring]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrAHtjt2 ... re=related[/youtube]

Good luck!

[Looneybomber]

Why pick an ugly person with an awesome resume when you can have a beautiful person with an awesome resume? I would enjoy going to work more if I was surrounded by hotties. Oh and have them where a school girl outfit! Morale goes up, truancy issues go down.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Better find a clean labcoat.


Think a tie would be too much?

[Gold Digger]

Who changed my title?

[Razi]

Nobody!
Even if the title is changed, the "Re: -----" bit on everyone's replies before the title change still keeps the original title.

[Gold Digger]

The original title was:

Job hunting in Japan: Better have a pretty face


Someone changed it and didn't inform me about it.

[themadscientist]

So, Neal, how the hell did you find a job?

I suspected this was the case. I've never seen a heifer at the McDonalds, only hotties. A&W on the other hand seems to value skills or something.

Some entrepreneur should set up an office and offer photoshop services to perk up the resume pics. I know people would pay top dollar for it when their possible career is hanging in the balance.

[Chris.m]

On a more serious note, I suppose the discussion on this article tackles two issues: employers judging prospective employees on looks aswell as the applicants trying to make themselves look better in an attempt to get the job.

In responce to the first issue, I really don't find anything wrong with judging a person by a picture as "the first screening process".

Looking at the picture is quick, which is important with so many applicants as per the article.

An analogy may be thinking of what sort of car you'd like to buy if you know very little about current makes and models.

Would you make a list of every possible vehicle in the class you are looking in and search through engine sizes which could take some time?

Or would you start looking at pictures until you find a few you like and go from there?

Looking at pictures is a judement shortcut.

As to the accuracy of judging peoples' abilites based on pictures, I can only say that in personal experience when asked to pick groups for group-projects, nine out of ten times I can tell if a person will be incompetant or lazy etc...

Longer,unkept hair on a guy is a give away, if they look like a skateboarder or the type that says bro alot....

Again not, 100% accurate, but better than a lengthy interview proccess for all.

Also from a companies perspective, they may have done calculations to see that missed additional productivity in the form of money, from more quailified applicants is less than that of the cost of the additional interviewing for all applicants.

So they may save money.

Companies probably don't intend to discriminate based on looks but if it helps to make money, then why not? (Aside from morals which we could agrue about into the night)

As for the second issue about changing looks for a job application. I don't have a problem with that either.

First, you can only do so much - you won't turn into Pierce Brosnan. You won't change perceptions that much.

Second, the initiative of making yourself look better reflects in the type of person you are, the kind that does what ever it takes to succeed, which is a valuable trait in a company.



-Chris (2nd Year Business Student at SFU)

[themadscientist]

I can guarantee you the benevolent and astute reasons you suggest for scrutinizing pictures of applicants first, it is a very good indicator of the general attitude of the applicant, are, unfortunately, not resident in most employers' minds when they review them.

[Chris.m]

I can guarantee you the benevolent and astute reasons you suggest for scrutinizing pictures of applicants first, it is a very good indicator of the general attitude of the applicant, are, unfortunately, not resident in most employers' minds when they review them.

If I am clear with your posistion, you argue that from the interviewer's point-of-view, they are not thinking about the characteristics of the person indirectly exhibited by the picture? My example was the hardworking trait demonstrated by the effort it took to look better for the picture.

I suppose if thats the case, then do you think that the interviewer is just very superficial and merely approves good-looking people?

Perhaps the two (good-looking and underlying traits) are connected?

Since "good looking" is relative and varies from person to person, it should follow that in this case, this is the interviewer's concept of good looks.

And if this interviewer like's their profession (this concept is less credible if they don't), could they just subconsciously pick up on they traits that they like, which would be suitable to that profession? (we assumed this realtionship previously)

Speaking of this subconscious aknowledgement of traits, I remember an example that I had heard a long time ago that goes as follows;

Men, phsycologically, like women with bigger breasts and curves because that is an indication of higher levels of estrogen, which is associated with being more fertile, and better to raise children.

Yet I'm sure these days, that is not the reason men will provide in their answer to that question, as the real answer may lay in their subconscious.

A real life example may go something like this; an applicant for a tattoo shop has a picture that the interviewer looks over.

Assuming she likes her job and that culture, she may think he is good looking because he has spiked hair and piercings.

There could really be an underlying motive for this "good looking" judgement. The spiked hair and piercings could be an indication of outgoing-ness and creativity which would be advantagious in a tattoo shop, yet the interviewer, herself, was not expressly judging his looks with those traits in mind. It is just the relationship between the interviewer likeing the job; that culture and then subconsciously picking up on those traits through the applicant's looks which she proceeds to judge as good-looking.

In this way, traits could be part of the subconcious that dictates your definition of good looks. And if those traits that you like, are also assosiated with the job (which may be the case if you like the job), then your seemingly superficial view of good looking could infact lead to a better judgement of the job applicant.

Superficial looks and underlying traits could be connected.


-Chris