The era where club activities directly become job hunting activities
Out of the blue, I spent my entire four years of college in a band club. It was a club that had produced professional artists, and I had many senior bands I admired. However, even those seniors would retire from the club by the winter of their third year. They'd shed the vintage clothes bought in Shimokitazawa and change into cheap, off-the-rack suits to go to interviews.
"Club activities won't help you at all in job hunting,"
With those words, they headed off to corporate jobs or civil service. The bands I admired disbanded one after another.
Why are club activities and job hunting so completely disconnected?
Why must we quit our clubs for job hunting?
Why do student clubs seem disconnected from society?
Let me introduce myself. I'm Yuichiro Kojima from Dentsu Inc. Youth Research (Dentsu Inc. Wakamon). Dentsu Inc. Wakamon is redesigning student job hunting and recruitment activities.
On January 29th, Dentsu Inc., Recruit (operator of "Encourage"), and university marketing company U-Campus jointly launched a renewed service called "Circle Up" ( release here ). This service was born from my own personal experience.
Blurring the Lines Between Company and Club
Japanese university life is sometimes called a "moratorium" (a period of respite before entering society). A common path many students take during this time is extracurricular activities like club activities and student organizations.
Circles, to which a remarkable 89% of first-year students belong, are a uniquely Japanese university phenomenon. They are neither companies nor legal entities. No permission is required to establish them, and there are no criteria for dissolution.
For sports clubs, the very meaning of a "circle" often lies in being less intense than the athletic associations. In fact, the term "circle mentality" is mostly used in society to imply something childish.
However, I hypothesize that these very "circles" hold the key to the next generation of organizational structures.
- The End of Lifetime Employment
- Corporate side-hustle liberalization
- Remote work during COVID-19
- The Age of the Individual
Lately, people's sense of belonging to organizations has been steadily declining.
Instead of traditional top-down structures, flexible Teal organizations without designated leaders are gaining attention.
Furthermore, as seen in YouTube's advertising slogan "Live by doing what you love," the traditional value of "hobbies should not become work" is shifting toward a trend of "turning hobbies into work."
Driven by these trends, the next era will see the boundaries between companies (rigid organizations) and clubs (loose organizations) gradually dissolve.
Companies may take on a club-like atmosphere, while clubs themselves will increasingly become companies. A prime example is Ryogo Matsumaru, who led a mystery-solving club in university and went on to establish a mystery-solving production company.
A world where club activities and job hunting aren't separate
Among the various types of clubs, university clubs are the most representative, but few have direct connections to society or businesses.
Club activities are, after all, meant to be pursued as hobbies.
This mindset among students is influenced by the "job hunting start date" set by universities and Keidanren.
While the timing varies by era, a specific date has traditionally been set for the start of company information sessions and job interviews. For example, the start date for information sessions for the class of 2020 was March 1, 2019.
This effectively conveyed the message: "You don't need to think about employment until the winter of your third year" (focus on your studies). However, Japanese universities are relatively easy to earn credits in compared to overseas institutions. Consequently, the reality is that students often focus not on academics, but on extracurricular activities like clubs (or part-time jobs). As a result, the perception that "leaving the club = the start of job hunting" has become entrenched, creating a disconnect between club activities and job hunting.
Therefore, we hypothesized that if university clubs became more visible in society and gained more points of contact with it, universities, students, and companies might all begin to change gradually. Based on this hypothesis, we launched a service called "Circle Up" in 2013.
We transformed the "mailing list," then used as a club communication tool, into an app. We also implemented a points system where registered students could earn funds for club activities by answering surveys. Without major promotion, we gained 70,000 users over six years.
However, 70,000 users is a small number for an advertising platform, and it couldn't generate profit as a Dentsu Inc. business. Also (and this is an excuse), I lacked app development expertise at the time and couldn't provide users with a high-quality UI/UX. Development funds ran out mid-improvement, leaving us only able to make minor fixes for several years.
This service showed significant promise in making clubs more visible. Stars emerged one after another from events held as promotions for Circle Up.
The "SOUND YOUTH" music circle contest, co-hosted with Sony Music, saw participants like Satoshi Fujiwara ofOfficialHige Dandism and YOGEE NEW WAVES during their student days.
The "NOROSHI" comedy circle competition, co-hosted with Yoshimoto Kogyo, saw participation from now- prominent freelance comedians like Rarandoand Nyanco Star's Angora Mura-cho during their student days. Furthermore, many students entered Yoshimoto Kogyo's training school after participating in the competition. In fact, among comedians who graduated top of their class from Tokyo NSC (Yoshimoto Kogyo's training school) in recent years, three out of the last four had competed in this event. University clubs have thus functioned as a new "talent discovery platform."
These achievements led to Circle Up's comprehensive renewal, based on the concept of "not separating club activities from job hunting."
Building a service where clubs and companies support each other's activities on equal footing
Fundamentally, club activities and job hunting should be a good match.
Band club → Entertainment industry
Volunteer club → Education industry
International exchange club → Trading companies
While this industry affinity is obvious, it's not the only benefit.
Clubs involve administrative tasks similar to work. From being president to handling finances, general affairs, and mentoring juniors—things working adults get paid to do—club members actually pay dues to do them.
So why do students participate in club activities?
When we asked college students who belong to clubs, they gave us these answers:
- Because I like the club atmosphere
- Because I'm just happy to be involved in a field I'm interested in
- Because it feels like my place
- Because clubs seem like a way to do what I want to do
What do you think? If you think about it in terms of a company, wouldn't that be an ideal organization?
You can quit a club anytime.
Yet students choose to stay in that organization. Despite whatever complaints they might have, it's become their place.
I hope that even after becoming working adults, the places they choose to be are organizations like that. For example, just as a student might pay club fees and take on chores because they like the atmosphere of that tennis club, I hope they can find an organization where they like the company atmosphere so much that even the chores don't feel like a burden.
They could leverage their club experience to build skills, gradually earning money along the way. We want this gentle transition to be a natural path to employment—making club activities and careers seamless.
We've poured these aspirations into the renewed "Circle Up." Its concept copy is: "Club activities might be limitless."
Finally, a brief introduction to the service.
Simply put, the renewed Circle Up is a platform where clubs and companies mutually support each other's activities. Companies support students' club activities. Students support companies' recruiting and marketing activities. Both companies and students decide for themselves which group's activities to support.
Let me explain in more detail.
All students registered on Circle Up belong to some kind of club. Once a company decides which club or student they want to support, they send an offer requesting cooperation with their recruitment or marketing activities. Clubs or students who accept the offer earn two types of points: Circle Pointsand My Points.
Circle Points can be exchanged for club activity funds, while My Points can be received as cash in personal accounts.
Incidentally, the new feature allowing direct deposits to personal accounts was added to reduce the time spent on part-time jobs.
Club activities often require money, so students tend to spend more time working part-time jobs to cover these costs. By the time job hunting season arrives, they've spent so much time working that they end up having to quit both the club and the part-time job.
Students who couldn't fully participate in club activities end up lacking things to highlight during job hunting.
Many university students get caught in this cycle.
This led to the solution: "Let club activities directly become job hunting. "
Companies use club activities and peer recommendations from members to identify clubs and students to support. In other words, the more effort put into club activities, the more attention they receive from companies.
And the more companies support clubs, the more vibrant club activities become. Since individuals also receive compensation, students can build relationships with companies while still in school, allowing them to quit part-time jobs and focus on club activities. This structure ultimately helps students build their track records.
When job hunting season arrives, there's no need to quit clubs or part-time jobs and come up with "embellished self-promotion" just for the job hunt.
We're moving into an era where club activities directly translate into job hunting.
We aim to make this a reality, even if just a little, through the renewed "Circle Up."
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