I was speaking with my buddies who are working/studying in mostly English speaking countries and some parts of Europe, told me that how valuable it is to know Japanese or have some experience working in Japan(Specifically in IT and Finance). It seems that Japanese companies has more investments across the globe and It would absolutely help.
Now, I don’t know anything about this. Some of them work for some very big Financial companies and have an impressive profile. I don’t have any reason not to believe them but still, I would like to get some prospective and opinion.
Did your work exp in Japan or knowing the language helped you in anyway when you moved to other countries or recognized by people across globe?
6 comments
Work experience in any G7/well developed country is going to be valuable. Knowing Japanese specifically is not going to be all that helpful as it simply won’t come up for most positions in most companies.
I agree, I’ve mentioned my Japanese experience in my resumes and interviews and I have never gotten a follow-up question on them.
It honestly depends which country you’re talking about – the leverage it has will be higher in Asia where Japanese companies are more prominent, compared to English-speaking countries.
LOL, grass greener on the other side? I don’t think Japanese has any use outside of Japan.
In general, people see it as an interesting fact. Sometimes, interviewers will see that a foreigner who moved to a different country, with a different language, and learned that language as proof that they are very flexible, able to learn new skills, and able to cope in a variety of new situations, but there are only few situations where the language itself would be helpful outside of Japan or a Japanese company overseas.
There is a strange disconnect. People will generally tell you that Japanese will be valuable or that people will be impressed by it. The reality, in my experience, is that it’s a nice little small talk point. Other than that, it has about zero value.
For many global companies, Japan represents maybe 5% to 10% of revenue. It’s not insignificant, but it’s small enough that people at HQ don’t care all that much.
And when they do care? Well, they “need a local”, i.e. they want to hire a Japanese person locally. Really, no value. I lived that one.
I’ll note something else. My wife is a native Japanese speaker. She’s also great at English. In NYC the recuiters just zeroed in on the Japanese speaking skills and kept offering her Exec Assistant roles at Japanese companies that paid $35K per year. Then the EAs would have to do a range of roles like research, translation, and actual EA work. She’s actually a regulatory compliance manager, but that’s what she could get in NY.
Having worked in Japan is great for your resume in general (shows you are able to survive in/ adapt to life in a foreign country as well as work in one). Japanese language ability, however, is of course only valuable to companies that need it.
Same if you were interviewing for an English-only role and you suddenly said “Oh yeah I speak Swahili” the interviewer would be like “OK great… moving on…”.