Opening the Path Beyond Hiring! Career Consulting for Job Seekers

Launched in February 2024, Dentsu Consulting Inc.'s team "Recruitment Branding Experts" supports client companies with recruitment branding while also assisting job-seeking students with career development. By approaching both companies and job-seeking students, they are designing a better job-hunting experience for the new era.

This article presents a digest of four lectures delivered by Mr. Kento Masuda and Ms. Rina Watanabe of the Recruitment Branding Experts at "Encourage University" (*) as an example of career consulting for job seekers. It explains the approach they take with job seekers.

※Encare University: A career learning community operated by "en-courage," Japan's largest career support NPO. "Recruitment Branding Experts" support job seekers' career development at "Encare University." The lectures provided insights across a wide range of areas, from the fundamental approach to career planning, self-analysis, and envisioning the future, all the way to putting the envisioned career into practice – not just limited to the job hunting period.
 

<Table of Contents>
▼Lecture 1: Teaching "Planning Skills" to Conceptualize Your Career

▼Lecture 2: Teaching Hints for Self-Analysis to Discover Your "Uniqueness"

▼Lecture 3: Teaching "The Power to Envision the Future"

▼Lecture 4: Teaching "Methods to Put Your Planned Career into Practice"

▼"Recruitment Branding Experts" Supporting Both Companies and Students

Lecture 1: Teaching "Planning Skills" for Career Design

Mr. Yuichiro Kojima, a former Dentsu Inc. employee and member of the Recruitment Branding Experts, took the stage. Titled "Planning Skills to Transform Any Situation into an Interesting Life: Taught by a Former Dentsu Inc. Business Designer," he shared insights on "planning skills" – a useful tool for job hunting, career building, and enriching life.

Fundamentally, for students, job hunting is less about simply "choosing a company" and more about taking the "first step in designing their life." Viewed this way, it requires consideration not only from short-term perspectives like salary, benefits, or department assignment, but also from a long-term perspective focused on personal happiness and life purpose – questions like "What kind of life do I want to live?" and "What do I want to achieve?" Kojima emphasized that "planning skills" are invaluable in this context.

During the lecture, Kojima defined planning ability as the capacity to propose "interesting and achievable" options, specifying that "interesting" means "something novel and highly unique." Drawing on his own career at Dentsu Inc., he explained that by navigating twists and turns to find a "vacant lot position" – a role where one can make a tangible impact – one can transform their life into something more interesting.

He also mentioned techniques for developing planning skills, advising job seekers: "The quality of a plan is proportional to the amount of thought put into it, so it's crucial to master the skill of producing quantity without spending excessive time."

Rather than focusing on what society generally deems "correct," approaching job hunting through the lens of "planning" – considering what constitutes an interesting career for oneself, or what makes a career socially rare – seems likely to lead to more fulfilling choices.

This lecture can also be seen as an endeavor to conceptualize a new, approach to job hunting that suits you, by leveraging "planning ability"—a key capability at Dentsu Inc.—in today's uncertain, VUCA era.

Lecture 2: Tips for Self-Analysis to Discover Your "Uniqueness"

Presented by Yu Miura, a Recruitment Branding Expert. Titled "Life Career Planning Seminar: Connecting Past and Future (Part 1)," he introduced a new self-analysis framework based on the marketing 3C analysis to support "self-analysis" in job hunting.

"Self-analysis" refers to the step in job hunting where you analyze your own characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses to find the "core" of your career choices. However, objectively analyzing oneself by looking back on one's life is difficult, and job seekers often hit a wall during self-analysis.

Responding to this challenge, Dentsu Inc. adapted its business methodology—"a method for grasping the value of companies, products, and services, and communicating that value to the right audience in the right form"—to provide job seekers with insights for connecting "themselves" with "society."

During the lecture, drawing on examples from past workshops for job seekers, Mr. Miura introduced a self-analysis method structured around the perspectives of "yourself," "other job seekers/your peers," and "companies/society." This method parallels the marketing technique "3C Analysis," which analyzes the current situation based on three elements: the company, competitors, and customers.

• STEP 1: From your own perspective, unravel your personal history and find meaning
• STEP 2: Discover a new version of yourself from the perspective of your peers/rivals
• STEP3: From the society/company perspective, identify the gap between the image of youth society sees and yourself
• STEP4: Based on the analysis up to STEP3, define your unique strengths that are more likely to be accepted by companies and society

This lecture suggests that by differentiating yourself from rivals and gaining an overview of your position in society, you can further update your self-analysis.

While "self-analysis" often carries a strong image of introspection, leading many job-hunting students to fall into narrow-mindedness, I believe this lecture offered valuable discoveries.

Lecture 3: Teaching the "Power to Envision the Future"

Shuichi Shibukawa from Dentsu Inc. Future Business Research Institute took the stage. Titled "Life Career Planning Seminar (Part 2): Connecting Past and Future," he lectured on "future forecasting" – a skill applicable across broad domains from job hunting and career paths to societal trends.

While "future forecasting" might sound like a dream, this lecture focused on the "process for predicting the future" – specifically, "what perspectives to adopt and what methods to use to increase the resolution of the future."

During the lecture, Mr. Shibukawa highlighted four key perspectives crucial for considering the future: "population change projections with a reasonably high degree of certainty," "overarching trends like carbon neutrality," "a cohort perspective based on shared values among generations born around the same time," and "the likelihood of technological innovation adoption based on societal acceptance." All of these perspectives are grounded in the "present" and are immediately applicable.

For students focused on job-hunting strategies, this lecture offered a valuable opportunity to learn a "future forecasting" approach with broad applicability to life in general, enabling them to gain a wider perspective.

Lecture 4: Teaching "Practical Methods for Achieving Your Envisioned Career"

Takumi Sakaguchi and Rina Watanabe from Recruitment Branding Experts, along with Kōta Fujisawa from Ignition Point Inc., took the stage. Titled "Encourage Alumni Present! The Gap Talk Working Professionals Want Job Hunters to Know!", the three young professionals discussed concrete methods for putting the careers envisioned during job hunting into practice.

A particularly important keyword that emerged was "the importance of honing both your OS and applications."

The OS refers to the "foundational human qualities" needed to tackle daily tasks, such as one's attitude and communication skills. All three agreed that "having an attitude of trying anything is crucial."

Sakaguchi stated, "Facing the tasks right in front of me actually increased the things I wanted to do." Watanabe noted, "The job-hunting support work I did as a student directly connects to my current recruitment branding duties." Fujisawa shared, "My experience with career coaching is proving valuable even at my new job."

On the other hand, Applications refer to role-specific skills like marketing or sales, encompassing things like presentations and logical thinking. They emphasized that these aren't skills you learn once and forget; maintaining an attitude of constant updating and absorption is crucial. Incidentally, they suggest it's best to first hone your OS and then build upon that by strengthening your Applications.

, advice based on the real experiences of young employees, likely helped job seekers gain a clearer picture of what it means to work as a professional.

Recruitment Branding Experts Supporting Both Companies and Students

As mentioned above, the Recruitment Branding Expert provides job-hunting support through "Encare University." This includes dedicated Q&A and discussion sessions with students, actively gathering authentic feedback within feasible limits. This approach uncovers real values that quantitative surveys alone cannot reveal. When considering effective recruitment strategies for Generation Z job seekers with diverse values, please feel free to contact us.

Dentsu Inc. Recruitment Branding Expert Secretariat (Nishii, Iwabe)
Email: recruit-branding-expert@dentsu.co.jp

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