You Arrive in Japan, and Already Have to Decide What Comes After Graduation
By the time I first started seriously looking into job hunting in Japan, several months had already passed since I enrolled.
Graduation was still a long way off, and my research had only just begun. I had assumed that this stage was for settling into life, learning how the lab worked, and slowly thinking about what to do after graduation. But after repeatedly asking AI and reading recruiting sites, I found that the reality was completely different.
Once spring began, internship briefings, Entry Sheets, Coding Tests, and interviews appeared one after another. Many programs took place during the summer, but applications and selection started in April or May. I had barely had time to separate questions such as whether to pursue a PhD, what kind of work I wanted, and why I would choose a particular company. They already had to go into application forms.
I later realized that the problem was not only that job hunting in Japan starts early. For someone who has just arrived to begin a master’s degree, life in Japan, life in a lab, and career exploration start almost on the same day. The recruiting system assumes that the exploration leading up to them has already happened.
The published schedule has barely started; the actual process is well underway
The Japanese government’s schedule corresponding to the Class of 2028 does not look particularly early.
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s schedule for students graduating in academic year 2027 still uses three dates as its general rule:
March 1 before the graduation year: corporate publicity beginsJune 1 of the graduation year: formal selection beginsOctober 1 of the graduation year: formal job offersIf this table were the whole story, a first-year master’s student would seem to have plenty of time. Learning about companies in March near the end of M1 and interviewing in June of M2 would still be enough.
But the schedule is a government request to employers, not a legally binding rule. In the same schedule document, the government explicitly says that the gap between the official rules and actual recruiting has been widening.
The surveys cited in the document found that roughly 70% of students had taken part in internships or similar career programs, with participation increasing from July in the year before graduation. About 70% of participants received invitations to early selection, and about half later took an exam or interview. In the employer survey, roughly 60% of companies began publicity by February, while around 70% began selection by May.
March and June remain milestones on the published schedule, but they no longer tell us when job hunting actually begins.
A summer internship does not begin in summer
For the Class of 2028, spring 2026 was already the selection period for summer internships.
A program might take place in August, but before that come briefings, application screening, Coding Tests, and one or more interviews. Some internships are short work-experience events. Some lead to later selection. Others are full practical projects in their own right. They should not be treated as the same thing, but all of them require students to know what they want to apply for in advance.
In its May 2026 recruiting update, Gakujo also reported that universities had begun holding preparation briefings on internships and Open Companies for the Class of 2028. Some moved self-analysis, ES, and interview preparation into the first half of the academic year. For employers, meeting students before the summer break is also becoming part of recruiting plans.
Missing one summer internship does not mean losing the chance to join a company through regular recruiting. Schedules differ widely, and failing an internship selection does not necessarily prevent someone from applying again in the main process. The point is that for students hoping to use an internship to understand an industry, the exploration itself now has a deadline.
Three things start on the same day
Someone entering a Japanese master’s program directly from overseas usually has to begin with the practical parts of daily life.
Registering an address, opening a bank account, arranging a phone, insurance, and housing are not difficult on their own, but doing them together takes a fair amount of energy. At the same time, there is a new way of working in the lab, classes and research have to begin, and Japanese changes from an exam subject into a tool used every day.
Career exploration starts at the same time.
Industry categories that made sense elsewhere do not transfer directly to Japan. Understanding what SIers, SES, Web companies, in-house development, corporate IT departments, and IT consulting actually do requires a new map. I covered that separately in the first article of this series, A Map of Japan’s IT Industry.
There are earlier questions too: whether to pursue a PhD, whether to remain in Japan after graduation, whether research or product development feels like a better fit, and what language to work in. Reading a handful of job descriptions will not answer them.
The more natural order would be:
Live here for a while→ Experience research and the way people work→ Learn about the industry→ Decide which direction to apply forThe actual order is closer to:
Enroll and settle into daily life→ Learn about the industry at the same time→ Prepare internship applications at the same time→ Explain a career choice during selectionLanguage is not the only difficulty. The more immediate problem is that career exploration and career selection occupy the same window.
Japanese undergraduates have a preparation period that is not on the schedule
Japanese undergraduates can be uncertain too, and some do not start learning about job hunting until their third year. There is no line separating well-prepared Japanese students from unprepared international students.
The difference is more about the context of everyday life.
Even without preparing formally, an undergraduate in Japan has already lived here for two or three years. Through senior students, clubs, part-time jobs, campus events, and classmates, they may already have heard terms such as trading companies, consulting, SIers, sogoshoku, and role-specific hiring. Before formal job hunting begins, those concepts have at least been present in their daily environment.
An international student entering directly into a master’s program often has to build this map from the beginning. Japan Day 1, lab Day 1, and career exploration Day 1 arrive together. Recruiting, however, advances by graduation cohort and does not wait another six months because someone has just moved to Japan.
The system is not deliberately designed to disadvantage international students. Japan’s mass new-graduate recruitment is organized around one graduating cohort, and companies cannot wait for every person’s circumstances. The problem is that its schedule assumes students have already completed a fair amount of career exploration before selection, while an international master’s student may not have had that lead time.
Autumn enrollment gave me some room
I enrolled in October 2025, which roughly places me in the Class of 2028.
By the time summer internship selection began to pick up in spring, I had already lived in Japan for six months. My master’s program did not become any longer, but those six months appeared at the point when my career direction was least clear.
It was enough time to experience a small but real part of research life and to understand the basic categories of the Japanese IT industry. Whether I could adapt to life here, what kind of work I preferred, and which roles were worth learning more about no longer depended entirely on imagination.
Six months did not settle everything, but two points gradually became clear: I do not plan to pursue a PhD, and I prefer being involved in product development over time.
Preparing early does not mean deciding everything early
When recruiting moves earlier, the easiest response is to fill in every answer as quickly as possible: choose an industry, write a complete motivation statement, and keep applying according to that version of the story.
But someone who has only just begun research and life in Japan is unlikely to reach stable answers within a few months. Turning the first choice into a life plan would be premature.
I now think of early preparation as reducing the information gap. First learn which industries exist, when internships open, and roughly what selection requires. Then use actual experience to rule out directions that do not fit. An application still needs a reason at that moment, but the reason is allowed to be provisional.
For an international master’s student arriving in April, this buffer may not exist. If the plan is to work in Japan, it helps to learn the industry’s basic vocabulary, graduation-year system, and rough schedule before leaving home. Arrival will still be busy, but at least it will not be necessary to look up what an SIer is for the first time while registering an address.
It is not over yet
I am still in the middle of job hunting for the Class of 2028. I have no conclusion yet about early selection, the main recruiting process, or the final choice.
Autumn enrollment also has disadvantages. It changes how time is distributed in the first half, while the period between graduation and the common joining date still has to be arranged later. Being out of step with most students also makes it difficult to attend entrance and graduation ceremonies with the same cohort, and there is usually no lab-wide welcome or farewell gathering. For someone who values those milestones, that may be a real loss.
If pursuing a PhD, October enrollment may not provide an additional advantage either. It instead requires another plan for the timing of entering and completing the doctoral program.