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As probably none of you know, I have been searching for a job for the last two months. I was fortunately able to save a lot of money during the last three years thanks to my last job, so although I have been unemployed since August I have had the luxury of being able to wait until I got an offer on a job I really wanted. So with that said, this post is mostly for people who are thinking about changing careers, will be graduating next spring, or for whatever other reason are looking for a job in America during the worst economy since baby jesus was around (I heard the doom and gloom a million times when I left my last job).
Here are my credentials, if you can call them that:
BA in international relations
6 months experience at engineering/manufacturing company
3 years as English teacher in Japanese elementary schools
conversational Japanese
basic computer skills that anyone and their mother has (ms office and the like)
amateur road racer (cars)
That's everything remotely worth mentioning. Now here's some statistics about my job search. I applied to a relatively small number of positions because I was very specific about what I wanted: a job in the automotive field in which I could use Japanese language but NOT translation/interpretation. Here's the results.
Positions applied for: 10
Positions interviewed for: 6 of 10
Offers received: 3 of 10
Total length of job search: 57 days
Take that for what you will, but what I have taken this to mean is the American job market is really not half as bad as everyone has made it out to be to me. Maybe it's just the field I'm going into, my willingness to relocate pretty much anywhere, some strange combination of skills I have or the like but I was expecting to be searching for a lot longer than two months. In the end I got pretty much exactly the type of position I was looking for at a company I thought was way out of my reach. I will be relocating for the job but I feel like that's a small price to pay for this opportunity. So if you're in the job market now or will be soon take heart, there are jobs to be had. And hey, if you can't find anything now try learning Japanese. It worked for me. 
TLDR: There are jobs out there.
 
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So you got a job in an automotive field?
Absolutely there are jobs around, luckily you have experience, if you were straight out of college you'd be a lot harder pressed.
Most people are stuck in the catch 22 of you need experience for a job, but you need a job to get experience.
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First off, congratulations!
I have a few questions though,
did you end up teaching in Japan through JET or some other program? (Also did you enjoy this experience and would you recommend it?)
How did you land this original job? (6 months experience at engineering/manufacturing company)
When you were looking for jobs you said you looked for ones in automotive field, were you only looking at graduate jobs there or did you go for any position?
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Total length of job search: 57 days
I don't know, that still sounds kind of problematic for me. Also, it probably helped a lot that you knew Japanese. I don't know many people with the discipline to be able to learn that.
But congratulations! Do you get to travel to Japan as part of your job?
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On October 29 2013 05:43 mizU wrote:
So you got a job in an automotive field?
Absolutely there are jobs around, luckily you have experience, if you were straight out of college you'd be a lot harder pressed.
Most people are stuck in the catch 22 of you need experience for a job, but you need a job to get experience.
Yeah, for a company that makes transmissions. I have some experience but the teaching experience honestly didn't count for much since I have no intention of making a career of teaching. The knowledge of Japanese business culture and language that I got through that job definitely helped though.
On October 29 2013 05:53 DarkNetHunter wrote:
First off, congratulations!
I have a few questions though,
did you end up teaching in Japan through JET or some other program? (Also did you enjoy this experience and would you recommend it?)
How did you land this original job? (6 months experience at engineering/manufacturing company)
When you were looking for jobs you said you looked for ones in automotive field, were you only looking at graduate jobs there or did you go for any position?
Thank you! Yeah, I taught through the JET program for 3 years. It had its ups and downs (the downs mostly to do with me being in one of the most rural placements in all of Japan) but overall yes, I would absolutely recommend it. I did it primarily as a way to improve my Japanese as there's really no better way than going to Japan, and getting paid well to do a job that is a lot of fun while you're there is just icing on the cake. The one thing I would recommend though is if you plan to use the experience in a career that isn't teaching then try to learn as much Japanese as you can while you're over there. If you come back with no Japanese language skill and no desire to be a teacher potential employers are going to wonder why you were there at all.
I got the job at the engineering company through a family connection. In this case the saying holds somewhat true: it's about who you know, not what you know (though I did have to prove my mechanical knowledge to get the job in the end).
I was looking primarily for jobs that only required a few years of experience in the field. I have zero experience working in the automotive field but if you get an interview you can spin the experience you do have to sound a lot better than it actually is. Almost every job listing out there asks for people with 3-5 years of experience, realistically I think a lot of employers end up taking people without exactly what they are asking.
On October 29 2013 05:53 Chocolate wrote:I don't know, that still sounds kind of problematic for me. Also, it probably helped a lot that you knew Japanese. I don't know many people with the discipline to be able to learn that. But congratulations! Do you get to travel to Japan as part of your job?
Anyone can learn a language, it just takes time and discipline like you said. I will be travelling to Japan as part of the job which is something I was hoping for.
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I was very specific about what I wanted: a job in the automotive field in which I could use Japanese language but NOT translation/interpretation.
What did you want to be able to do with the language aside from translation/interpretation?
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On October 29 2013 06:17 futility wrote:Thank you! Yeah, I taught through the JET program for 3 years. It had its ups and downs (the downs mostly to do with me being in one of the most rural placements in all of Japan) but overall yes, I would absolutely recommend it. I did it primarily as a way to improve my Japanese as there's really no better way than going to Japan, and getting paid well to do a job that is a lot of fun while you're there is just icing on the cake. The one thing I would recommend though is if you plan to use the experience in a career that isn't teaching then try to learn as much Japanese as you can while you're over there. If you come back with no Japanese language skill and no desire to be a teacher potential employers are going to wonder why you were there at all. I got the job at the engineering company through a family connection. In this case the saying holds somewhat true: it's about who you know, not what you know (though I did have to prove my mechanical knowledge to get the job in the end). I was looking primarily for jobs that only required a few years of experience in the field. I have zero experience working in the automotive field but if you get an interview you can spin the experience you do have to sound a lot better than it actually is. Almost every job listing out there asks for people with 3-5 years of experience, realistically I think a lot of employers end up taking people without exactly what they are asking.
Ah thanks for the lengthy answers! Just out of curiosity did you have any possibility to choose on the JET location or were you just assigned to a largely rural area? I'm kind of interested in doing the same thing just in order to gain conversational Japanese, but I'm a super urban person..
I see, well I hope I will have made similar connections :D thanks for being honest about it though!
Not entirely sure how the CV checking goes, but if you had no experience in the field, any idea why the employers picked your CV to even get you to the interview stage? I mean did you just stretch/drag the engineering job to try and cover the automotive base?
Anyway I'm still quite happy to hear a success story like this, even with everyone moaning about the economy all the time!
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Are you not in Japan? Why are you talking about the American job market?
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On October 29 2013 06:28 Grobyc wrote:Show nested quote +I was very specific about what I wanted: a job in the automotive field in which I could use Japanese language but NOT translation/interpretation. What did you want to be able to do with the language aside from translation/interpretation?
There's a lot of jobs using language outside of translation/interpretation. In the automotive field a LOT of the companies in America that support the major Japanese automakers like Honda, Nissan and Toyota are entirely Japanese staffed. A lot of the staff at the automakers are Japanese too, including a large number of rotational staff from Japan who generally do not speak English. This means there must be a lot of bilingual staff as well, and that's what I'll be. I won't be doing translation, I will be doing a "normal" job but dealing with a lot of people who do not speak English.
On October 29 2013 06:45 DarkNetHunter wrote:
Ah thanks for the lengthy answers! Just out of curiosity did you have any possibility to choose on the JET location or were you just assigned to a largely rural area? I'm kind of interested in doing the same thing just in order to gain conversational Japanese, but I'm a super urban person..
I see, well I hope I will have made similar connections :D thanks for being honest about it though!
Not entirely sure how the CV checking goes, but if you had no experience in the field, any idea why the employers picked your CV to even get you to the interview stage? I mean did you just stretch/drag the engineering job to try and cover the automotive base?
Anyway I'm still quite happy to hear a success story like this, even with everyone moaning about the economy all the time!
You can put preferences on the JET application but there is no guarantee they will pay attention to them. I personally tend to think they look at them and put you as far away as possible but that's another thread. For reference, I put down Kyoto, Saitama and Gunma and I ended up in rural Hokkaido.
As for getting the interview, I think it's largely to do with the fact that most companies use keywords to pick out resumes these days. They may have just picked out every resume with "Japanese language", "engineering" and such mine managed to make the cut so they never even knew before the interview happened. Could be something else entirely, but that's a possibility. I tried to milk as much out of that job as possible as well as pushing the mechanical skills I've learned through racing and working on race cars as a hobby.
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Very general statement that the job market is good when it's based on a sample size of 1 anecdotal evidence in a specific field.
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Here there is no jobs. Youth unemployment (that is to say people under 25) is at 40%
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On October 29 2013 07:38 obesechicken13 wrote:
Very general statement that the job market is good when it's based on a sample size of 1 anecdotal evidence in a specific field.
Dude thanks for the useless comment, but he's giving us his perspective in a blog and trying to encourage other people not to give up. He is not publishing a paper and making a statement to the world.
OP is correct, the job market is doing better. Unemployment rates have been decreasing for all age groups/genders (CPS). Job openings and Job creation are on the upward trend (JOLTS).
Yes, you can argue participation rate is on the decline, but if you look into the micro data, the reasoning behind this could be due to other reasons than discouragement.
I'm not going to go technical but the general consensus among economists is that the job market is improving.
@OP Congrats on getting the new job! The job search is stressful and can be discouraging with the amount of rejections you can get. But it seems like your statistics are very solid and it was smooth for you to get a job!
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On October 30 2013 00:38 needcomputer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2013 07:38 obesechicken13 wrote:
Very general statement that the job market is good when it's based on a sample size of 1 anecdotal evidence in a specific field. Dude thanks for the useless comment, but he's giving us his perspective in a blog and trying to encourage other people not to give up. He is not publishing a paper and making a statement to the world. OP is correct, the job market is doing better. Unemployment rates have been decreasing for all age groups/genders (CPS). Job openings and Job creation are on the upward trend (JOLTS). Yes, you can argue participation rate is on the decline, but if you look into the micro data, the reasoning behind this could be due to other reasons than discouragement. I'm not going to go technical but the general consensus among economists is that the job market is improving. @OP Congrats on getting the new job! The job search is stressful and can be discouraging with the amount of rejections you can get. But it seems like your statistics are very solid and it was smooth for you to get a job!
The job market might be improving, I don't know, but to say that he found, 3 job offers in 10, is normal. And in 2 months, while others have a much harder time and spending longer amounts of time, is more demoralizing than it is helpful.
It's like saying "I can do it. Why can't you?" which then leads people to question if they're lazy.
I don't think it was conscious. I think OP just wanted to share the good news.
But that kind of outlook is the same outlook the rich have of the poor. "I made my wealth, why can't the poor and sick figure out how to pay for their own housing and healthcare?". It's easy to look down.
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On October 29 2013 07:53 krndandaman wrote:
as an IR major myself, my parents have been worried that I won't have good job prospects, especially if I don't go to grad school (which I don't want to). This is somewhat encouraging.
How old are you if you don't mind me asking? and are you Japanese-American?
you seem similar to me, I'm a Korean-American who has lots of experience with living/conversing with native Koreans, IR Major, and want to work at a job that can make use of my Korean knowledge/background. thanks for the blog!
I'm 27 and pretty much as white as it gets. But experience wise we have a lot in common, I don't think you'll have a problem finding the kind of job you're looking for!
On October 30 2013 00:38 needcomputer wrote:
Dude thanks for the useless comment, but he's giving us his perspective in a blog and trying to encourage other people not to give up. He is not publishing a paper and making a statement to the world.
OP is correct, the job market is doing better. Unemployment rates have been decreasing for all age groups/genders (CPS). Job openings and Job creation are on the upward trend (JOLTS).
Yes, you can argue participation rate is on the decline, but if you look into the micro data, the reasoning behind this could be due to other reasons than discouragement.
I'm not going to go technical but the general consensus among economists is that the job market is improving.
@OP Congrats on getting the new job! The job search is stressful and can be discouraging with the amount of rejections you can get. But it seems like your statistics are very solid and it was smooth for you to get a job!
Thank you! On the whole I think I was very lucky. Some of the jobs were absolutely uninterested in me after an interview (usually because my Japanese isn't perfect) but I lucked out in that the one I really wanted also wanted someone like me 
On October 29 2013 07:53 krndandaman wrote:
The job market might be improving, I don't know, but to say that he found, 3 job offers in 10, is normal. And in 2 months, while others have a much harder time and spending longer amounts of time, is more demoralizing than it is helpful.
It's like saying "I can do it. Why can't you?" which then leads people to question if they're lazy.
I don't think it was conscious. I think OP just wanted to share the good news.
But that kind of outlook is the same outlook the rich have of the poor. "I made my wealth, why can't the poor and sick figure out how to pay for their own housing and healthcare?". It's easy to look down.
I definitely didn't make this to rub it in anyone's face. The point I'm trying to make is that there are jobs out there, even good ones, for people with a relatively small amount of experience. That doesn't mean they're just going to fall in your lap but they are out there if you're willing to work for them. I've been studying Japanese for 7 or 8 years now and racing/building race cars for a decade so it certainly wasn't a matter of me waking up and thinking "hey learning a second language and how to change my oil would make me more employable". I've had a goal in mind,been working towards it and now it's finally all paid off.
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