“ Can I speak to Mr.xxxx? I hope you didn’t feel embarrassed with my sudden call asking if you are interested in a job opportunity in a famous topnotch US investment bank’s Tokyo operation as the head of HR. Your name was found as one of the most capable and appropriate candidates in the local market. Do you think you could spare your time to meet with the senior Vice President in charge of HR in this company’s New York head office, who will come next week?”
A call received from a search firm (“Head Hunter”) normally started with such message as bove. Almost a quarter of a century ago, I remember that it was in such atmosphere that the people working for most of the Japanese companies believed the companies they once joined should be the ones which they should continue working for lifetime, quitting them should be resulted in that they should be treated as a traitor to the companies and eventually regarded as a dropout of the society based on companies oriented social wide ethics. However for last decade, so many search firms got into / started their business in the market, collecting information, contacting people, suggesting job changes, making match of the candidates with the companies. And in the end, they could earn search fees equivalent to 25-30% of sum of the candidates’ first year fixed compensation and guaranteed bonus. This business model may have made people believed easier to get in, as they were not requested to prepare any big capital to launch the business. They may have historically played a role to eventually break through the Japan’s traditional company oriented ethics.
There seems to be some arguments about the reaction to the trend raised recently based on the Canon’s successful business model, where Mr. Mitearai, heading the companies group, blared that the Canon’s management principle based on the traditional Japanese family oriented ethics brought the success of the business. Also, many tops of the major companies seem to tend to comment on the superiority of the traditional ethics as far as the business should be run in the Japanese society and to show their distaste for high turnover. There is an opinion that the recent smaller birth rate, which should accelerate making Japan as aging society and therefore jeopardize the future’s productivity in more rapid velocity than any other countries have ever experienced, has historically generated by the companies’ narrow-minded sabotage of hiring new graduates in the last long term recession, as it eventually discouraged young people to get in stable jobs, to get married and to make babies.
When the society’s trend turns to be more aware of the above ongoing phenomena to lead to the final crisis and most of the companies start to adjust the course of hiring on more new graduate basis to seek for more stable working environment rather than high turnover, the corpulent number of Head Hunters may be pitched into the fire of serious selection and restructuring.
