Hello, everyone! My name is Zouming Zhang. Please feel free to call me Zhang! After I finished majoring in Accounting at Fudan University in Shanghai for 4 years, I worked at a trading company in the United States and Canada for a while. People around me can speak 5 to 6 languages and it motivated me to learn a new foreign language by studying abroad. At that time, my best friend who also graduated from Fudan University once studied at Kyoto University as an exchange student told me that Kyoto is the best place for studying abroad. That story influenced me to continue my studies and I decided to come to Japan. 

I didn’t want to waste my college life, so I planned very well to make my college life very fulfilling. Since I was a second-year student, I started working in Signus.Co, a semiconductor manufacturing company as a part-time around 3 times a week. I worked as a purchaser’s translator and also as an assistant for material managers. As a liberal arts student, this experience allowed me to learn so many business terms in science territory and the daily workflow as a part of a company much faster than learning in classes. Other than my part-time job, I was also in charge of the Doshisha Chinese Student Association for 2 years. As a committee, I worked with my members to plan and hold many events for the Chinese students' community at Doshisha University which helped me to improve my management skill, as well nurturing me to become a better leader. 

What I wish I had done during college

I should have put more effort into academics in college.I worked hard in my part-time job but I almost forgot that academics is the main responsibility for college students. I just chose the courses that my friends recommended to me without taking a careful look at the syllabus on my own. I still regret that I should have gotten to know more professors and taken some more interesting classes that are helpful to practical work like commerce or economics. Yes, it is true that being in the field and getting hands-on practice is a valuable experience. But one thing I realized later in life is that the things you study in classes will surely equip you with the general knowledge to minimize your failure risk and proceed faster without trial and error during the course of your career. If you don’t treasure the chance to study in college, I am sure you will regret it for the rest of your life. 

Self-Analysis is the Key to Successful Job-Hunting 

To be honest, most of my college friends who failed in their careers didn’t have a clear image of what they wanted to do before graduation. If you have this mindset that any job that will be okay for you, that’s a big mistake. If the job doesn’t suit you, there will be so many troubles waiting for you during the course of your career and ultimately, push you to quit the job. The first and most important thing a student must do is self analyze yourself and discover your interests! If you are the kind of person who prefers to work in a structured environment, a large company will be your choice. If you want to work in a performance-oriented environment, choosing a foreign company is better than a Japanese company. If you have a really big dream and like challenging new things, being an entrepreneur or working in an SME company or even a startup is a good career path worth trying for. Knowing yourself and choosing a job that helps you realize your dream is the basic fundamental to start a career. I suggest students do as many activities and be involved in as many organizations during college to guide yourself to self-discovery. 

Plan Ahead! Think about 5 to 10 years to the Future!

This is something that fresh-graduates tend to forget due to the stress caused during Job-hunting. When finding your first job, I really recommend you to think about what will happen in 5 or 10 years later instead of holding a short-term perspective. For instance, considering the impact of COVID-19, what kind of job will become more necessary, and what kind of job will be unneeded in the future? You need to find an answer to such kinds of questions in the long run since the world will be ever-changing and like it or not, you have to adapt in order to compete. However, sometimes you can’t find the answer by yourself when you don’t have any working experience in that territory. My advice is to research deeply by asking seniors or professors who are already experienced in a particular industry in order to get insights. This will help you broader your long-term perspective and understand the pros and cons of your decision.

Research Skills

If you are liberal arts students, especially when your job is marketing or sales, you need to present to your peers your progress often. Whether you can make a good presentation really depends on your research skills. For example, when you make a presentation about a product that your company is going to sell, you can not present it without describing what competitors are there in Japan and abroad. Comparing Q(Quality), D(Delivery), and C(Cost) of your company to others is fundamental and this is something that you should get used to as early as college. Highlighting what’s your company product’s strengths and weaknesses to persuade colleagues to agree with your idea is the most important. Last but not least, it will help you know which industry or company is more positive for recruiting people by researching the economy this year. No matter if you are a job hunter or an employee, research skills are the most worth you having and will be used in practically all industries!

Minute Taking Skill

Maybe not many of you have heard about Minute Taking Skill but it is definitely a soft skill a fresh-graduate must possess! After I have worked 12 years since I graduated in 2008, I learned that minute taking skill is the ability to summarize the discussion, new ideas, problems in a fast-paced way and it’s a crucial skill. Minute taking skill is NOT just taking memos or notes in the meeting. If it is just jotting down words during a meeting to your notes, anyone can do it easily and it is not as effective when you are able to write down a concise yet concrete summary of the conversation. Having a minute taking skill in your arsenal means you are capable of understanding everyone’s opinion and taking the correct notes based on the results collectively during a session. If you don’t understand others’ opinions, you will take notes as it is or worst, create misunderstanding between peers and clients. During the meeting, pay attention to summarizing everyone’s opinion and problems that we need to solve as a next step. When you have a good minute taking skill, you can make it easy to understand what problem we realized in the meeting and which solution we are going to use, which is crucial for the team or company’s direction.