Originally Posted by
enlight85
That’s a difficult question to answer really, because I’ve always just tried to be myself when applying for something over trying to be what I think they want me to be.
Going through it step by step, you obviously said the right thing in your initial application and telephone interview which I think is a significant part of the battle. If you held onto that for your seminar and one to one discussion, you should really just be solidifying the expectations that have of you, they may be thinking, ‘…you clearly would like to work in Japan but do you have the confidence and life experiences to adapt to the situations you may be presented with?’. From your opening post, I don’t think confidence is an issue and you seem articulate!
In terms of my own assessment, there were four people and some alarms rang pretty early into the session. For example, one of the candidates just kept talking about this one town he had been to, the desire to go back there and having very little interest in any other place. It was like they thought the seminar was an opportunity to get across the importance of your location preference. During the session, when speaking about other locations, the candidate would just reiterate why X or Y never really seemed like a place they wanted to visit etc. They were also quite nervous, fidgeting and looking down while spoken to and didn’t come across as confident. When they spoke about something they liked, I tried to draw more out of them than, ‘I like X’, my response was ‘Oh great, what aspect did you like when you visited?’
-blank stare-
I wasn’t trying to catch anyone out, but rather I wanted to make everyone more comfortable in the open forum the interviewer was trying to create. I think she was looking to see how everyone just… ‘was’. Someone else in the group appeared qualified, had lived in Japan and was really smart and professional but just didn’t speak in the session at all and appeared to be crippled by their own nerves. The fourth person was a bit of a closed book, but has similar experiences to the third candidate. Pleasant, polite, talkative. It seemed that offering opinions of aspects of the culture, anecdotes of your own experiences rather than sweeping generalisations and a genuine interest to learn more will put you in a good position for progression. I was lucky enough not to stumble in my recording but know that everyone else did have to retake an element or two, so I wouldn’t worry there. We were even told that some people are allowed to rerecord they stuff at home and send it in later! That wouldn’t have reflected too well, I’m sure. Oh, actually, I did do something wrong in my recording… I didn’t look at the camera enough. ‘Pretend that the camera isn’t there’ does not equate to ‘ignore the camera’. I spent my time speaking to my imaginary class and had to add a snippet of video on the end where I smiled directly at the camera and thank everyone for their time. I know from my own discussions afterwards that two people in that session were offered roles (myself being one of them).
To try and offer something on your original question around what I thought went well for me, I suppose I would say;
I followed the dress code
I engaged everyone (positively) in the session when they spoke about their own experiences
I held eye contact and smiled with the interviewer
I asked questions to the interviewer and other candidates
I gave my own examples of how I thought Japan would ‘work’ and the way I would ‘work’ in Japan
I passed the test
Oh and finally!
Things that I thought would put me in a negative position to get a role;
I am married
I am 30
I am in a management position
I am unattractive
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], and I shall find myself in career limbo again. Fingers and toes crossed!
