Day 164 of writing every day.
I had a career consultation with the online school advisor regarding concerns I had about finding a job and also to update them on what I was learning. The initial plan had been to learn React, which in retrospect seems like it might be more valued even in Japan and of course elsewhere than Laravel, which doesn’t have much worth in the US if my brother was right about the tech industry trends.
With just over a month left before I need to have a job lined up, and the average expected amount of time to get from job application to interview and result in a job offer being at least one month, it really is crunch time.
I’m really thankful for the support the advisor provided me, and how she seems to be putting in extra time and effort to speed up a process that usually is slower and more spread out. Starting with resume advice, I was told that Japanese hiring practices tend to focus only on age, sex, highest level of education received, and if someone has held a job for a reasonable amount of time instead of quitting less than a year in.
The requirement of pictures was mentioned before, but I wasn’t aware of how shallow picky human resources can be when deciding on whether an applicant deserves a chance to be interviewed. I think the western expectation is to see if someone can do the job based on their skill and experience, or if they have the potential and demonstrate good character that makes them easy to work with and beneficial towards the creation of a healthy workplace environment.
Why care if someone is past their twenties and wants to give a new career in the tech industry a shot if they’ve got plenty of working experience elsewhere and demonstrate enough competency with technology to suggest they’ll be able to do the job with a bit of training?
If anything it’s the people in their twenties that are the biggest flight risk. They have plenty of time to find out what they want for a career, and if they don’t like how things go at work, they have less to lose for quitting and moving on to continue the search for what they want to do in life. Companies seem to be welcoming of fresh graduates despite their lack of actual experience as humans outside the education system they have been sheltered by.
Anyways, I need to finish writing up my resume so it can get properly reviewed. I feel like some of the advice I’ve received has already helped me better see what kind of person I look like to people who don’t know me and have to decide if I’m someone they can imagine themselves working with. It’s not something I think about every day and the learning experience will help me grow, I’m sure.
Thanks for reading!
One Chance Works 