In the era of year-round recruitment, bring out your appeal with "shortcake thinking"!

The traditional job hunting rules will be abolished for new graduates joining companies in 2021. The "new graduate batch hiring system," which Japan has strictly adhered to since its period of rapid economic growth, is likely to undergo a sudden transformation.

With the abolition of the rules, the anxiety of students job hunting without precedent is immeasurable. In the future, it is expected that companies will have more freedom in their recruitment schedules and that recruitment through internships will increase, so students will be busy preparing at an early stage.

Hello, I'm Aaron Zu, Creative Planner at Dentsu Inc. CDC. After graduating from university in the US, I studied at a Japanese graduate school and joined an IT company as a new graduate. Having completed a Japanese graduate program, I receive many requests from juniors for alumni visits. To date, I've advised over 100 students on their entry sheets (ES) and interviews.

Through engaging with students' job hunting and researching youth insights and behavioral analysis as a Creative Planner, I began wondering, "Couldn't students plan their job hunting more effectively?"

This led me to devise five methods for securing job offers from target companies. These are introduced in my book, Job Hunting Design in the Year-Round Recruitment Era, published by Hakutou Shobo in October 2019. The book argues that everything modern students need for entry sheets and interviews can be solved using "shortcake thinking." I'd like to share some of this content in a three-part series on Web Dentsu Inc.

Everything needed for ES and interviews can be solved with Shortcake Thinking

The "year-round recruitment era" is upon us. Individual activities will be valued more than ever, and students securing job offers from companies during their studies, regardless of timing, will become increasingly common. Students must focus on job hunting early on, effectively showcasing their strengths while keeping their future career goals in sight.

Japanese students often struggle to articulate compelling motivations because their university studies don't always align with their desired career fields. Many students approach interviews by tailoring generic self-promotion and motivation statements to each industry, based on experiences like part-time jobs, clubs, or seminars during their student years. I call this job-hunting style "exam-style job hunting," likening part-time jobs and club experiences to "exam preparation" and the desired industry or company to "university."

In the era of year-round recruitment, it's essential to narrow down your desired industry and companies early and build your unique selling points (evidence) based on your experiences. This requires moving beyond the traditional "exam-style job hunting" towards "advertising-style job hunting," which aims to cultivate professional talent.

If we replace the "characters" appearing on the "stage" of job hunting with advertising industry terms, the job seeker themselves becomes the "product," other job seekers become "competitors," and the interviewer becomes the "consumer (user)." You must sell your product (yourself) to the consumer (interviewer) and differentiate yourself from the competitors (other job seekers).

First, conduct ① industry and company analysis, followed by ② self-analysis, and then accumulate ③ relevant experience (evidence). Based on this, establish ④ your core job-hunting principles and create ⑤ your application essays. Furthermore, decide on ⑥ your flagship catchphrase to stand out among tens of thousands or thousands of entries. Finally, confirm ⑦ whether the industry or company matches the strengths you've gained from your experience. Only then can you truly begin your job hunt.

The key to advertising-style job hunting is "turning yourself into a shortcake." For example, what conditions are necessary to get someone to buy your shortcake from among all the cakes in a cake shop?

The answer is simple: "It must look more delicious than the other cakes." The "springy sponge" represents evidence of your dedicated efforts during your student years, while the "fresh whipped cream" is the logic (reason) behind your desire to join the company. And the "bright red strawberry" becomes your symbolic buzzword (summarizing "I am ○○ in one word"). With these elements, your chances of getting the customer (interviewer) to buy you (hire you) skyrocket.

Next time, I'll cover logic and evidence—the whipped cream and sponge cake layers of your shortcake.

Trim size, 148 pages, Price: ¥1,400 + tax, ISBN 978-4-561-51107-6 C0034