LinkedIn. The greatest job website globally that purports not to be a job website is the first port of call for many companies expanding into new markets, hiring key experienced and skilled professionals across many levels. This is a great tool across geographies, industries and has been relied upon by companies hiring directly and agency recruiters alike.
Japan is a bit different though. With an 8% market penetration of working age Japanese, LinkedIn doesn’t have the depth of coverage it does elsewhere. But then, Japan has always been a bit different online – Yahoo is still more popular than Google for early millennials and older, and local e-commerce player Rakuten is tied for market share with global behemoth Amazon.
Let’s look at where LinkedIn has problems, as well as other online platforms to find talent in Japan.
How the Japanese see LinkedIn
LinkedIn brands itself as a professional networking site, and as in most Western markets, people will use it as a platform to build a professional brand. People will carefully select a profile picture, fill in details, write an entertaining bio introducing themselves and actively like and follow companies in their industry, even including competitors.
This is not so much the case in Japan. Not only does far less of the professional population have an account (<10% compared to >60% in US), but the profiles seem bare. No picture, just company names, dates and job titles is the norm. Most Japanese refrain from commenting and engaging with the community, the profile seems as good as dormant from the outside. It is also common for profiles to disappear, often after the person changes jobs.
Why? The reason is simple: Japanese view LinkedIn as a job search site. Unlike any of the local job boards though, they can’t easily hide their identity and therefore can be found by their boss, colleagues or HR. It is not uncommon for Japanese professionals, upon having their LinkedIn discovered by colleagues, to be asked if they are not happy and looking to leave the company.
A Japanese version of LinkedIn?
Bizreach is sometimes referred to as the Japanese version of LinkedIn. This platform, as well as Doda X, Rikunavi, Recruit Agent and others are more accurately Japan’s answer to Indeed or Monster.com. They are job boards, where professionals create a clear profile outlining their background, including age, income levels, desired working conditions and locations with the intent to apply to job postings, or be approached by scout messages. Privacy rules in Japan, and the fact that professionals can mask their identity until they decide to respond to an incoming message is the #1 trump card these services hold over LinkedIn.
For the energy industry, Bizreach has the largest general talent pool available, and other niche specific sites — i.e. for construction, or IT — can be worth looking at as well. Wantedly would be the #1 site for startups and tech focused companies, including energy and climate tech.
Like many things in Japan, these can get very domestic very quickly. Websites are in Japanese, English language support is almost non-existent, and the candidate volume rated as business proficient in English or above is around 10% or less site by site. Most large sites require job posters and agencies to prove that they have a local entity existing in Japan, and therefore these might not be accessible channels for those who are looking at market entry or in the early stage of launch.
Cost is another factor to consider. Most of these sites will charge an account establishment fee, monthly or annual subscription fees and also a percentage fee once a hire is made, similar to a recruitment agency. These fees are typically 10~20% for direct hiring companies, depending on the hiring volume, and often higher for third-party agencies.
Social media as a channel
Both Facebook and X (Twitter) are channels that can be leveraged for online recruitment in Japan. As these are not socially viewed as job change sites, there is less stigma around publicly sharing where you want, commenting on industry related topics, joining industry related groups etc. Facebook Groups are actually one of the most active platforms in Japan for the startup community, whereas they’ve dropped off in popularity in other regions as people have favoured other channels for discussion and networking.
As community-focused platforms, they don’t provide instant access to active talent the same way Japanese job boards or LinkedIn do. You will need to build a corporate brand with a corporate page, and will get better response rates if the person in charge of outreach has a professionally focused account to connect with people.
If you have a longer term growth strategy and will be making consistent hiring, investing into social media corporate branding, sharing information about company events, culture, being active in group discussions etc and actively expanding industry networks can yield results. However, it will take significantly longer and a higher investment of consistent effort.
Business card registration sites
Data. He who has it will monetize it. Japan has multiple services that were originally branded as a tool to collect, organize and manage your business cards, update your professional network with promotions, etc. This is useful in Japanese businesses where people rotate positions often and meetings with Japanese companies usually have anywhere from two to eight participants.
Services such as 8card, Sansan and Skypce have been battling for market share and looking to expand revenue streams. Including a job hunting and scouting section is one area that’s increasingly common.
On the plus side, these services actually have a large volume of people who are not to be found on sites such as LinkedIn or Bizreach. After all, they are using these sites to organize the mess of hundreds of business cards accumulated over years of work and networking. Before shelling out for the recruitment subscription plans, which look a lot like Bizreach and etc in terms of pricing structure, remember that privacy and trust are paramount in Japan.
These companies know most of their customers are not using their service to get scouted for new roles, therefore usually those who are visible, able to be searched and scouted have to opt in to do so. Rates of total users to those who have opted in is close to that magic 10%, so be wary of jumping too quickly to purchase when you see the total user data.
Well, that all sounds like a lot of work…
For a company GM, APAC Head or hiring manager for whom recruitment is a fraction of their role, yes it is. Access to most of the market, high response rates and detailed profiles found on LinkedIn in other markets don’t have the depth in Japan for a quick search to yield results.
Investing in either hiring local dedicated talent acquisition staff, partnering with a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) firm or niche search firms who will use a blend of the industry specific channels may cost more on the balance sheet, but as the old saying goes – time is money.
Andrew Statter is a Partner at Titan GreenTech, an executive recruitment agency focused on the clean energy space.