How many recruiters did you talk to or use to land a job?

19 comments

1. My experience with recruiters is mixed. I received messages about position that have nothing in common with my skill set almost everydays. But I landed my current job and my last via in-house recruiters contacted me on LinkedIn. And I did received some nice offers from company introduced to me via agencies. From what I saw, well known agencies like Robert Walters, Hays,… don’t necessary provide a better experience than small agencies, it depends more on the agent you got.

   And I have applied and received a few offers via Green, but my impression is the jobs there are mostly from Japanese companies and the pay is low. They gave me 10,000 yen in Amazon gift card when I accepted an offer via them though, which is nice I guess. Nowadays I don’t bother with Green anymore because they don’t have anything in the salary range I expect.

   And if you are actively looking, 3 recruiters are too few my friend, you should be talking with 30.

2. I’ve had 2 jobs via recruiters and 1 job via directly applying at the company’s website. The experience was equally smooth in each case but I do liked the free beers and dinners the recruiters offered.

3. I spent a year job searching, contacting many recruiters before I got my current job. There were other options, but they didn’t pay well.

4. I got my current job from an in-house recruiter from linkedin. I have had bad experience with recruiters from careercross and daijob.com. One recruiter asked me to go to an interview for a position in Odawara. He gave me the address and the day that I was supposed to go to the interview, I checked on google the address of the company and couldn’t find it so I tried googling it and the office is not actually located in Odawara,it’s in another city called Fujisawa. I should have checked the night before but I trusted the recruiter that he knew the address of the company I was interviewing for. I cancelled because there wasn’t enough time to get to Fujisawa. The recruiter didn’t even apologize. Another recruiter I had bad exprience with was from skillhouse. I left my job (I passed the interview) hoping that I am getting a better offer only to fond out I had to work 14 hours a day after completing my one-month training.

5. I got my first job by recognizing who the job advertisement was placed by and contacting a friend who worked for them after the recruiter basically ghosted me.

   I got my second job through linkedin.

   I don’t have a lot of luck with recruiters but I also don’t like talking to people who’s only job is to make the decision of whether to hand you off to the person making the actual decision.

6. I pretty much only directly apply, either on a job portal website of direct careers page. Most recruiters are too slow or have no idea what theyre doing

7. I’m starting a new job next month and I went through a recruiter. I was applying for that specific job with that specific company, so the recruiter just acted as a go-between.

   I was also talking to another recruiter who told me to apply for ten jobs in the hope of getting maybe two interviews, which is exactly what happened.

   A lot of companies still want to go through recruiters to vet people for them. In my past and recent experience, recruiters tend to have a few positions in mind for you (whether they think that you’ll actually get the job or not is another matter), and they will typically ghost you if those don’t work out.

8. 1
   Got the first job.

   Getting work in Japan is the easiest thing I’ve had to deal with in life

9. I have had the best experiences with in-house recruiters. External recruiters are OK, but most of them don’t really know anything about the job they’re recruiting for. IMO the Japanese recruiters are the best. Foreigners, not so much unless you’re executive level. Lots of foreigners say they know a lot about the job market but you just feel that they don’t. Also Japanese recruiters can actually help you practice for an interview. So talk to as many as you can.

10. I have applied dozens of dozens of times by my own, never had a positive reply, 0 interview.

    Then a recruiter dedicated to scientific jobs / research oriented jobs contacted me, I had 3 interviews opportunities out of 4 applications. I attended only one of the 3 interviews, that led to further interviews, that led to them giving me a nice offer, sponsoring my visa and my moving from Europe.

    All 4 job opening were very interesting. I give a solid 10/10 to the recruiter.

    Edit: A year later, after few weeks reading this sub, and after thinking again of my job hunting experience, I realize that I had so much luck that this recruiter messaged me. I was alone looking for jobs without being in Japan, and without holding JLPT or any significant experience in working in Japan (except an internship at a national research lab and a baito at a restaurant). Now I am living my best life in a very very healthy work environment.

11. I heard that around 20 percent of foreigners land Japan jobs through recruiters and about the same percentage through referrals through friends.

    Personally I’ve gone with recruiters both times, and I think it’s the better choice as a foreigner as they give you a lot of good advice and support (if they are good at what they do). They sometimes also write a recommendation for you which makes it more likely for you to land an interview.

    But, if you can avoid it, you should try to do it yourself, as the company hiring you actually makes a loss if they hire you through the recruiter rather than straight away. So you can lose out a little on salary.

    Unless you’ve got a very solid CV, overall you are likely to have a better shot though recruiters.

    I recommend RGF, they were all very good and very hard working and I landed some good opportunities through them.

    Edit: realised I didn’t answer the title. both times I have changed job, I spoke to about 6 different agencies and maybe 10-15 recruiters each time.

12. I only used 2 recruitment agencies. **Recruit**, and **Pasona**. The former sent me lots of job postings (20+ a day) but it felt automated and I only had one chat with the recruiter; Pasona on the other hand, was excellent. They only sent me a handful of jobs (5), but had clearly gone through my resume and matched my skill set with the jobs in hand. They also recommended/required that I wrote a 志望動機 in Japanese for each application, to stand out.

    They were really good with interview preparation too, and the recruiter was on the phone to me regularly with updates. And I landed my current job, which was exactly what I was looking for, and I really enjoy it.

    It does also depend on what you are brining to the table, though. If you have IT skills OR N1 Japanese OR prior business experience, you’ll most likely get some interest. If you’ve been only been an ALT for several years and have only N3 level Japanese, it’ll be a tough sell.

13. 4 before first offer. 4 years later it was just one

14. Very mixed experience but one from En World (she actually bordered on rude, very rough manner) got me a great job and another from Robert Walters also placed me, but I’m not happy and going to jump ship one of these days. Watch out for the independent ones, very friendly on the surface but shady AF. They try and scope everything and get you placed somewhere you already told them you don’t want to go. And then they try to get you out of your role, make their commission, and place someone in the role they helped you leave.

15. I did 187 and got 10 interviews and passed 2.
    I have jlpt n1 and toeic 980

    Why bother? Lol.

16. When I was first starting out and had no experience, I think I spoke to around 20 different recruiters before I landed a job. But in the end it was the first recruiter I spoke to that introduced me to the best job.

17. One called me from LinkedIn. I did the interview and that was it . Previous 3 job I went directly. Recruiter was only for scheduling the meeting

18. I have always had a not so great experience with recruiters, they always called and then ghosted after wasting my time with random phone calls, so I’m grateful to my father in law for introducing me to my current company.

    I would advise on not relying too much on recruiters but keeping an open mind is also okay! Good luck!

19. Been searching now for 6 months, no luck. Done maybe 10 interviews altogether where a few went all the way to final one. Most complain after a few rounds that they want me but they don’t have a suitable position 🙁

    Talked to maybe 60 recruiters, maybe 10 have done a good job.