[Sangetsu]

I would not recommend trying to get a job with a Japanese company in any field. First, most companies hire only newly-graduated students, and next, few economies offer more in the way of dead-end careers in Japan.

Much as I like living in Japan, the corporate and business structure here is backwards to the point of being dysfunctional. Companies who hire new staff members do not care what kind of degree they have. You will see people with degrees in horticulture working in tech companies, and people with degrees in chemical engineering working in insurance companies. The reason behind this is that Japanese universities are not real institutions of learning, they are three or four years of summer camp which most students spend traveling and playing tennis.

Companies do not want highly educated and highly capable people entering their businesses. They want inexperienced and ignorant young people who can be indoctrinated into the company's culture, and made dependent upon it. Japan is a patriarchal society run by old men, and the system is designed so that you will not have any voice or responsibility until you yourself become an old man.

Japanese companies are strictly seniority-based, and workers receive promotions depending on their time in the company, not their effort, ideas, or skills. If you are the brightest and hardest-working person in your department, you will not be promoted any more quickly than the dullest and poorest working person in your department.

The only positive thing about Japanese companies is their safety. Once you are hired into a full time job, you are in for good. You cannot be fired or demoted, even if you sit on the toilet and read a newspaper all day. Japanese companies are full of workers who do little, or even nothing, and as a result, they have to hire more workers to pick up the slack. Many departments have two managers, sometimes three, only one of which actually does any managing. This excess of staff drives down wages, as companies only have so much they can spend on payroll.

Once you are into the company, you can sit back and enjoy a 40 year ride which includes long commutes to a small apartment or home in the suburbs, mediocre pay, seldom more than 5 consecutive days vacation per year, unpaid overtime, and living on whatever tiny allowance your wife gives you each month. There is a reason Japan's suicide rate is as high as it is.

If you are going to come to Japan, you must come here to start a business or create your own company. Japanese are very risk-averse, and much prefer to work for someone else than to work for themselves, so the country is starved for entrepreneurs. There are few opportunities for the poor schmucks who spend three hours on the train each day, and another ten hours at work, but there are plenty of opportunities for people who are willing to think outside the box and work for themselves.