Graduating in 2000 from St.Petersburg State University with the degree in Management and Economics I came to Japan for an internship at an IT venture company. Half a year later I signed a full time contract with the same company and have been working there ever since. Through the years I tried myself at everything within the company - from software engineering to 3D modeling and video content creation. Presently, I lead a corporate branding team.

Why I Came to Japan

You know how some foreigners come here because they like manga, food, or Japanese culture in general. Japanese culture is awesome no doubt, but I came for none of those things. My goal was independence and work in IT. Even though I didn’t have a technical education, I was fascinated with all things Internet and wanted to learn as much as possible. When I joined an international student organization AIESEC that offered me a technical internship in Japan, I jumped to the opportunity without thinking twice. For the first 6 months I learned how to code and was already working on mobile applications when the company offered me a full time job. 

One of my first culture shocks was the fact that almost nobody could speak English. However, the second surprise was that it wasn’t really a problem as everyone at the company was always patient and willing to help. 

Most Memorable Thing During College

In Russia, the college has more holidays than Japan - we actually have spring break, winter break, summer break and I used all those vacations to study abroad. Some of my lectures and seminars at the University were conducted in English so I had to catch up pretty fast. Since I could only speak German by the time I started University, I used all my free time to become familiar with English as well. And the most efficient way to do so is to go abroad and live the language.

The most memorable thing was participating in a business plan competition which I happened to win. It was sponsored by UC Berkeley - the university that has a tight relationship with my faculty. I wrote a pitch for an online marketing agency and later wrote a paper on the same subject and that further determined my desire to seek work opportunities in IT after graduation.

What I Wish I Had Done During College

I wish I had participated in college life more actively. We do not have as rich of a college life as they have here in Japan, where there are so many circles and networking opportunities. However, we still had theatre circles, board game nights, camps.. However I did not really participate in any of those because I was very self-sufficient in filling my free time. I enjoyed reading and studying languages, playing computer games - that was enough for me. However, networking during college years builds connections that prove to be useful later in life. Most of my college friends are now business owners or executives in big companies - and that sort of comes in handy when you think of starting something of your own. You can always use a friend in international  logistics or social media marketing. 

Research the Companies in Detail!

I actually never did job-hunting in Japan. I found Gaiax through AIESEC - an organization that offers internships abroad. Which I think is a nice way to try yourself in a hard environment, see if you can adjust and what you can grow into.

However, a lot of my friends have done job-hunting in Japan, and in general, the best advice I can give based on their experience is to research the company that fits your own lifestyle and culture and try to contact them directly. Nowadays, companies invest into an ‘inbound’ sort of employment by offering a lot of events and opportunities to connect. I think following a company and its people on Twitter, reading its blog and  joining its  events and open campus days is the best, fastest, and most secure way to find the job that you like. 

Invest in Your Own Self Branding

Focus on making yourself seen. What are you about? What are your values, your skills, your aspirations? Use social media to your advantage. People will not want to talk to you if they know nothing about you. Start as early as possible from school, university, and do something that makes you stand out whether it is cleaning the local beach from plastic waste, organizing a fundraiser or starting a YouTube channel. That would be my advice.

SNS that I would recommend for students in Japan would be a blogging platform note, YouTube and Twitter. Those are just tools to show who you are. The rest depends on you and what you want to show. Think about the rest of your life and what you want to do.

The Ability to Hustle and Become a Jack of All Trades 

I would say your ability to hustle. The job market is evolving now with so many jobs changing and so many skills becoming obsolete.  So it’s very important to learn how to hustle; how to adjust on the go and update yourself constantly. I’d say, instead of committing to one skill and becoming a professional at it, just try everything without a serious commitment. It will give you confidence and agility to find yourself comfortable in any situation.

The particular skills of being fluent in Japanese or SEO or PHP - these are secondary. Before that, you have to show that you are confident and ready for any challenge and then you sort of go and  figure out how to actually do it.

The Importance of Japanese

In my experience, the ability to speak Japanese is not so important for the actual work, especially if you are an engineer or a designer. However, if a Japanese company cannot communicate in English, it may never even consider hiring a foreign talent. A certain level is I guess an important aspect for job hunting in Japan. It will increase your options.

At Gaiax, we have a freedom to choose what we want to do. I love my job even though it challenges me constantly. Working in a small team means you have to do a lot. We outsource to our community constantly but that still leaves us with a lot of work. We manage corporate social media, website, blog, mailing list. We plan and organize events, manage our co-working space, create video content and printing content. Within the team I work as a strategy leader, manager, designer, web engineer and photo and video content producer. Oh, and I do events as well.

What I Like the Most about Gaiax

The complete freedom, I guess. In Gaiax, you can try different things and jump from one division to the next - try yourself at marketing, sales, finances, business development, design or engineering. You can choose what you want to do and it’s just a matter of you coming to your boss and saying “Sayonara, I’m going to do this now.” and they have to take it. Some employees can work for a few years and then one day just say, “I'm starting a new business. In 2 weeks I’m going to pitch you an idea. If you like it, invest in me”. Gaiax has produced a lot of startups this way and some of the companies even went public.

There’s a lot of opportunities within Gaiax, you can choose what you want to do but nobody will be holding your hand or telling you what to do. You need to decide that for yourself. For some people like me, complete freedom is really liberating - I can be my own boss and decide what I want to do, how I want to do it, and when I want to do it. But for some people it could be a struggle. If you’re used to being told what to do and how to do it, Gaiax won’t be the right fit for you.

Flexible Working Methods

Again, we have total freedom to decide how we work, when or where we work. Most of us are working remotely and come to Nagatacho GRiD - Gaiax headquarters only for events, meetups or just fun. I am free to build a project team with members from other divisions or even from outside the company. Moreover, we are free to choose if we want to take a new project as Gaiax employees or as individual contractors. I could be a Gaiax employee for project A and a personal contractor for project B and that is always OK. For example, an engineer would participate in engineering projects as a Gaiax employee but as a live streaming professional or an event facilitator he would take up a project as an individual contractor.

Supportive Environment

The company will never hold your hand and teach you how things are done. What it will do is provide you with an environment and tools that you can use freely to educate yourself and learn how to do things your way. After all, your way may be better.

The company invests into extensive learning support, covering not only free seminars and event participation but any books or gadgets that are necessary for individual growth. It also runs a series of free learning events called Work Shift School that are open to the public.