By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive


I had the privilege last night of talking with a large group of visiting high school students from The Harvey School of Katonah, New York on the subject of "How to Jumpstart Your Career In Japan".

We discussed quite a bit about not only developing your value and ROI as a candidate but how one can future proof themselves in the face of the impending tectonic societal and economic shifts that will occur and are occurring from the adoption and diffusion of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), expert systems, machine vision, robots, 3D printing, autonomous vehicles, etc.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


Have you ever wondered why companies so often hire or overpay for the wrong talent? You know, talent that often is just terrible. 

All while you can't seem to land a job.

This presentation is from the HR or Hiring Authority's perspective but it would greatly behoove you to be aware of what so often goes on in the sausage factory, allowing you to better understand and leverage this reality for your own career benefit.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


Reader's Question:
I recently passed the interview stage for a Systems Engineer position, and they sent me an initial offer.

I found the proposed salary to be insufficient given my years of experience and level of education (M.Sc.), however; and I countered by asking for a substantial amount above what they offered.

In order to justify the increase, I mentioned how much my participation (in a technical capacity) may have contributed to revenues for past employers. Unfortunately, that was a mistake; but I was just expecting fairly straightforward negotiating.

Instead, they responded by telling me to come up with a business plan to make the same amount of money for their company.

However, I have no experience, nor interest, in the business end of things.

I'm obviously in a weakened bargaining position at this point, and I'm wondering how best to proceed without making it worse. Or better yet, turn the tables back in my favor.

Signed,
- Matthew

Ask The Career Coach's Reply

Dear Matthew,

First off, congratulations on successfully completing your interviews and receiving a written offer!

That's no small feat in today's continuing "uneven" economy.

With that said, you're now facing a common situation whereby you believe that what the hiring company is offering you in terms of compensation is below your market value or at least your expected salary.

Further, you're now seem to be feeling that you may have boxed yourself in and developed a weakened bargaining position. Perhaps there's also a tinge of a feeling that you may have pushed too hard, potentially straining your future working relationships should you accept the offer (or that it may even serve as an impetus for the company to even rescind the offer).

So let's get this straightened out.

First, let's back up and consider how offers are determined or calculated, what factors influence them and what can be done to generate the highest initial offer with the highest velocity of transaction or transactional velocity.

Salary negotiations begin the moment you contact the company.

That's right.

From the very first contact made by you (or your recruiter on your behalf if you are using one) or if it's inbound then it's contact made by them, you are imputing and signaling value -- whether you intend to or not.

Your task then is to position, package, promote, present, persuade, communicate and convey your value to the prospective employer.

Initially, through you resume, an online application, an online profile, an outbound phone call, outbound email or some combination thereof, you should be working to be seen as the "Must Meet Candidate". They must feel that they have to meet you. 
Sure, they may meet you anyways, even if they are not hot for you, but the idea is to get them hot for you by raising their buying temperature.

Next during the interview process, the purpose is to be seen as the "Must Hire Candidate". That is, they must feel that they need to hire you ASAP and bring you on board as both as a fully satisfied and as a fully engaged contributor. That will normally yield the strongest package and fastest delivered written offer.

That's the ideal scenario.

Now, more specifically to your case.

You feel that offer is too low. This raises several questions:

1. Why do you feel it is too low?
2. Upon what are you basing your argument?
3. How far apart is what you expect and what they have initially offered you?

There are many factors involved, and these may be reasonable (at least from the company's standpoint of cost minimization + production maximization) as to why they are offering you "less" than you think you are worth (or that the market is saying that you are worth).

Here a few of the more common factors involved:

1. The market has changed.
   
2. Your skills have aged.
   
3. They feel that you are a risky hire (job hopper, career damage, accumulated disadvantages, etc.)
   
4. They feel there is an abundance of qualified candidates.
5. They feel that your skills are fungible, that is, a commodity, like flour,  table salt, canned corn.
   
6. They do it because they can -- you're unemployed and have no other options. Therefore, your current salary is zip, zero, nada, zilch.
   
7. They have a hard budget number to meet.
   
8. many more.....
   

So rather than speculating this, let's look a little closer at their response to your push back. After pushing back (which can often be a very good thing as it also imputes and signals value), they asked you to justify your counter offer.

Hmmm.

Notice that they didn't say  "no", "nein", "nyet".... 
Nor did they say. "That's it, take it or leave it. This is our best offer"

They asked you to justify it.

This means they are open to your counteroffer but you need to prove it. 

Further it is a good sign in that by forcing you to justify it, they can still offer you the same initial amount if you can't justify it and not feel bad or look bad since even you were unable to justify the increased salary amount you had desired or requested.

Okay, so how specifically can you justify more money?

First, here's what not to do:

1. Don't push hard.
   
2. Don't give ultimatums.
   
3. Don't get whiny.
   
4. Don't try to value or give value to what they don't value. That is, you are thinking that a Masters degree has some intrinsic value, but if they don't value that, they don't want to pay for it.  Don't try to sell them a Mercedes if they only need a use pickup truck. That is a major mismatch or misalignment of talent and need.
   
5. Don't try to use "salary surveys" to justify it.
   

Alright, then what to do?

Glad you asked. :)

Look at the value that you will bring and then quantify that financial impact the best that you can.

I would start out like this:
"Look, I'm really interested in this position, I'm impressed with the company, I feel it's a really good fit for me and I know I can add value. I'm not here to roll you over, break any budgets or squeeze anything above my market value, but given what you are looking for and what I can provide, I'd like to be compensated for that."

"I'm not a financial whiz, I'm a system engineer and I think my track record shows I'm good at it, so I'll try to more clearly articulate the value I feel that I will bring you. Thank you for considering this."

The next part is where you need to take the difference of what they offered you and what you countered with and justify it.

You have two ways to justify it:
1. Revenues produced/ROI generated.
2. Costs reduced (minimized mistakes, increased productivity, higher quality, etc.).

Avoid Feature Focus and Spotlight Benefits Brought

Rather than stating that you have XXX years of experience as a Systems Engineer or that you have earned a Masters degree (primarily features but can serve as benefits), you are far better served to map out and align the actual benefits that these skills will bring to the company's needs (and their bottom line) and this position so that you can show the value and benefits you bring to increase revenues, increase productivity while reducing costs, decreasing risks and so on.

Case in point: 
Look at Heartbleed. Maybe your value is that you are good at testing both negative testing and regression testing and your enjoy trying to break your/others modules and so on. 

How much money would such a skill and talent like that save or have saved?

More examples:
1. XXX years of experience may mean that you can work more efficiently.

2. A Master in Computer Science may mean that you develop better product environments, write better software, etc.

Think along these lines.

And make it visual. Why not make a 2 or 3 slide document that shows just the difference of what you want.

Maybe it's a $10,000 USD difference.

Show that as $10,000 USD and then show what you'll produce and put a dollar figure on it. Ideally, show the incremental improvements of your skills as well, and hopefully you are producing an even greater amount of value above the total salary you would get when it matches your desired salary.

Hope that helps!

- James Santagata

By James Santagata
Managing Director, Career OverDrive! / SiliconEdge

Mark your calendars for this exciting, upcoming event!

(FYI: This is not a gratuitous beat down on recruiters, it's a hard-edged, constructive conversation to give job seekers the unadulterated truth along with immediately actionable, life changing information and know-how - all recruiters are more than welcome).

  The recruiting industry is notoriously opaque and riddled with informational asymmetries,  full of traps and pitfalls that can cost you dearly in terms of job opportunities, job offers, lower starting salaries and worst of all, even your reputation.

In this exciting, interactive session James will explore and then offer specific solutions to:

• What value do recruiters add to the job search besides collecting resumes?
  
• What do they do with your resume and how do they determine job fit & skill matching?
  
• What impact does local office hiring demands have on MNC operations in Japan?
  
• How can a foreigner sidestep the "language requirement" and put the focus on skills?
  
• How can a 40+ year old job seeker easily land an interview and close the deal?
  

Join James as he exposes the inner workings of the recruiting industry while guiding you to job search success.

Bring and ask your hardest or most fantastical questions on recruiters and the job search process.

James is the Founder and Managing Director of Career OverDrive!(tm) and SiliconEdge(tm) as well as Executive Director of the Asia-Pacific Coaching Alliance (APCA).

He is a proven International Executive Coach and Leadership Development professional having deep US, Japan and Asia-Pacific coaching, training and consulting experience coupled with hands-on business & technical expertise. With over 20 years of industry experience, James has spent 11 of those years working in Silicon Valley for companies ranging from New Venture Start-ups to established Industry Leaders engaged in developing nascent technologies & pioneering emerging markets.

He is also the author of the forthcoming book, "Crush Any Interview!" and is a Certified Professional Coach, Certified Employment Interview Professional, Certified NLP Practitioner and has successfully completed the Corporate Human Resources Management and How To Be A Successful Trainer programs as well as the Principles of Persuasion Workshop.

Date: April 17th (Thursday)
Time: 18:30 open, 19:00 start, 20:30 end
Venue: FCCJ - The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan | Map to FCCJ
Cost*: ¥4,000 ICA members; ¥6,000 non-members.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!

One of the major challenges that new or recent graduates face in landing their first professional job is not necessarily determined by what they've studied but rather by what value they can offer to a prospective employer as well as their ability to clearly communicate and convey that to the prospective employer.

It's not just that some degrees are "better" than others, it's that some degrees are either far more in demand (due to a constrained supply) OR certain degrees are
more monetizable by the firm in question.

Holding an easily or readily monetizable degree means that prospective employers don't have to spend time figuring out how to use the degree nor does the student even need to be "good" at conveying their value (of course, this is still very important and I'm speaking on a "relative" basis here).

Conversely, if a degree is not easily or readily monetizable (or it's perceived that way) and/or there is a huge supply of those particular degrees in the marketplace, then the graduate (aka job applicant) needs to turn on or develop some strong "marketing and sales" chops to ensure that they have the proper messaging and are properly packaged and presented to the employer, while clearly communicating and conveying their value.

There's more to it than that on the marketing and sales front, but these are the broad strokes that you should be thinking about and internalizing.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


On an almost daily basis I'm contacted by or, during the course of the day, I come across individuals who express frustration that they either (a) have the proper credentials to do a particular job or (b) have proven experience at doing a particular job, yet they somehow have great difficulty in finding or landing not just that particular  job but often any job.

There are a number of very granular reasons as to why this is, but for now, takes take a 20,000 foot view of what's going on here:

• Being good at "doing a job" isn't the same as being good at "finding a job". 
  
• Being good at "finding a job" isn't the same as being "good at landing a job" (i.e., receiving an offer and joining the company).
  
• Being good at "landing a job" isn't the same as  "doing the job", let alone "keeping it".
• And even if one is good at all of those, it doesn't follow that one is also automatically good at planning and managing a career.
  

Below are the 5 broad areas in which some level or core competency is necessary for an individual to establish, nurture and enjoy a long vibrant and fruitful career. 

It should also be noted that each of these 5  areas can also be analyzed on a much more granular basis. 

For instance, finding a job and landing a job would together include activities such as job discovery or job creation, resume design and development, locking down interview opportunities, closing down the interview, receiving a written job offer, negotiating a "proper" starting salary and package, onboarding and so on.

Five Broad Areas Of Career Competency:
1. Do a job
2. Find a job
3. Land a job
4. Keep a job
5. Plan and manage a career

Do you agree or disagree with this view? Which areas do you find yourself strongest in? Which areas do you find your skills to be uneven or perhaps in need of a boost if not a tear down and rebuild?

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!

Dear James,

How can I gain employment in Japan, specifically in Tokyo? I have a Bachelor's degree, 30 grad hours earned and a TESOL certificate (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages). I am not a native English speaker and I am over the age of 35. I tried in 2012 to find a job while I was in Tokyo for 9 months and lost a lot of money that way.
What are the chances of teaching German there?

Kind Regards,

- TN

TN's Skills Inventory:
1. Bachelor's Degree
2. Graduate School: 30 hours earned
3. TESOL Certification
4. Languages: 
     (a) German: Native speaker
     (b) English: Native Level Fluency
     (c) Japanese: Advanced Beginner

Dear TN,

Thank you for your question. First please allow me to explain a few things about the Japan employment market for foreigners (gaijin / 外人).

1. Unlike the US, if you are coming from a Western country of origin and you hold a 4-year bachelor's degree, it is fairly easy, fast and straight forward to receive a working visa. The working visa, though, will require the sponsorship of a company along with a minimum monthly income. This can vary based on various factors, but simply Y250,000 is enough, which is what you can get at most full time teaching gigs as just a point of reference.

2. The trick then is finding employment. In general, unless you have specialized skills that are in demand and/or business level Japanese, your employment options in Japan are extremely limited. These often fall into the categories of English teacher, recruiter/executive search consultant, restaurant / hospitality and so on. There are obviously many exceptions, which can be leveraged based on both your skill at packaging and presenting yourself, your ability to locate, surface or create a job and timing and luck.

3. In general, for the English teaching jobs (or foreign language teaching jobs - French, Chinese, Italian, German, Spanish, etc.), the schools prefer someone who is young -- under 35 years old and often the younger the better. They also prefer or require a native language speaker. Again, there are always exceptions if you know how to play the game.

4. Because these schools get some many inquiries they want to reduce their time in shuffling through resumes. In addition, over the years, countless people have talked about coming to Japan and then when the time comes when they get the offer they bail as they say it's too low a salary or too much of a hassle to move, etc.

5. The people that do join the school or company, many times will leave quickly or find that they aren't happy, as their expectations are misaligned with market realities and the companies needs.

Okay, now back to your point. From everything you have told me, getting a job should be easy for you if you focus on your strengths, overcome any objections they have and you package and present yourself well.

You didn't mention the details of how your job search went when you were in Tokyo nor what companies or industries you focused on and applied to? So it's hard to answer details, as I would have to know that + did you land interviews? Did you take interviews? How did they go? Did you get second interviews (invited back)? Any offers? If you were rejected, why? What was their feedback? What was your opinion on why and so on?

In any event, let's go over a few quick strategies. 

1. To hire a foreigner outside of Japan is a major hassle for Japanese companies because of all of added logistics and so on and the risk that you won't take the offer after all of that hassle, and if you do take it you still may not show up, and if you do show up maybe you won't stay long -- so over come that.

2. To hire a foreigner even in Japan is a hassle for all the issues as number one, as they still need to go through the paperwork and responsibility of sponsoring your visa, getting you acclimated to Japan, and often serving as your housing guarantor -- but by being here you show passion, commitment and skin in the game.

3. If you have additional skills as you do, you can also leverage your native language skills by working for a company that does trading or business with a country that uses your skills. So you could join a Japanese trading or industrial company that needs to work with Germany or German-speaking countries. You would be the bridge or interface.

4. You could also teach German, but the opportunities will be far, far more limited than English teaching -- it's a niche, but it could be lucrative.

5. You age can be a pro or con depending on how you spin it.

Okay, here is the strategy I would pursue. The quickest, easiest way to get a job and your work visa and to get setup in Japan is to teach English -- so go that route. Once you are here, on the ground, get setup, settle in, save money and build up your skills, you can move out of teaching if you like or stay in it.

Specifically I would do this:

1. Plan to physically be in Japan to meet these companies face to face -- the English schools. But don't come. First, identify the schools, both big and small, and send a short email explaining your desire to teach at their school.

2. Open a dialogue, then get then on skype for your interview.

3. Once you've done that, repeat with up to 10 to 15 schools.

4. Then once you've figured out who seems serious, etc. let them all know you'll be in Japan on your own dime and want to meet them face to face -- if you are cash-strapped and can't do that, then get them to commit over the phone and close them that way. You could then wait until all of sponsoring paperwork is done and only come to Japan once your visa is granted.

5. Prior to this, you need to set up your resume and interview framework. Don't focus on your not native speaker, you're older and so o. Rather reframe like:

a. I'm mature, experienced, I know exactly what I want and I'm professional.
translation: I'm a problem free employee.

b. I have US degree and a TESOL certificate. I'm highly qualified to teach this, more than most people. If they bring up you are German / have German as your first language say, "That's why I'm qualified to teach -- I taught myself English at a native level and have a TESOL certificate, I can do the same for my students.... and so on..."

c. And then focus on your interesting in Japan,you'll be hear a long time and that it's nice to work with a school that values mature teachers.... 

There are many other ways to do it, but that's a way to reframe any perceived negatives as positives and also put to bed their worries.

You can also do the same thing by contacting non-schools that may need a German speaker -- they won't list so those jobs, so just cold-call the company directly.

These resources may be helpful as well:
1) Can't Get A Job (or The Job You Want)? Master The Job Search Lifecycle
2) The "Young, Educated & Unemployed" - A Major Misunderstanding
3) Career OverDrive! Solutions

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!

Over the years, first as a college student looking for my first "real world" professional job and then later as a hiring manager, a business owner, a recruiter and a career coach, I've noticed the same Myths & Memes and misconceptions popping up time and again. 

Often it is so-called "Career Experts" who give life to these Myths & Memes that you the reason you can't find a "good job" or a "suitable job" or "establish a career" is because you are somehow lacking "skills" or the appropriate "education". If and when you finally do land a job, if you don't get promoted or worse get forced out or blocked and decide to leave, these "experts" will chalk this up to it being, you being, a "bad fit" or "poor fit" for the company.

This is wrong, wrong, wrong for many reasons (e.g., we've previously talk about the SWAN Principle and the cost of acquiring new skills or going back to school).

Alright so let's get to this . First,  need to understand that skills by themselves have no value. Period. It doesn't matter how good you are or how much demand there is for those skills, you must have the ability to monetize your skills either by monetizing them on your own or most commonly by plugging into someone else's platform or system.

Now let's talk about the actual patterns you'll see over the life of your career and, in particular, let's discuss what I call the Job Search Lifecycle.

A) In the simplest terms, this view explores the skills that we need:
1. You need the skills to do the job.
2. You need the skills to find the job.
3. You need the skills to land and close the job.
4. You need the skills to maintain and keep the job.
5. You need the skills to plan and manage your career.

B) Now, let's look at a more granular view of the lifecycle and skills needed:
1. Skills acquisition: As a starting point, you'll acquire some amount of skills. They may be hard skills, soft skills, some combination thereof or even simply potential. But in the end, you'll have (and need) something of value to bring to the table of the prospective employer or customer.

2. Packaging: Once you have acquired your skills you need to package them. What are you offering? Is it easy to understand what you do? What is your value proposition? Do you make me money? Save me money? Reduce stress? Enhance productivity?

3a. Job Identification: Now you need to find a position to apply to monetize your skills. You need to identify the job so you have a target to apply to. In some cases, these are easy to find or locate while in other cases you will need to surface them. Much of this depends on timing and luck, so if your dream employer just filled the position you want or you've come into the process very late, there's often not much you can do. That said, just like a lottery,  you need to be in it to win. You don't have a chance to win if you aren't in the game, so you'll need to put the time and effort into this (which is your "lottery ticket" or the price of entry).

3b. Job Creation: Many times, however, the ideal job you want doesn't exist now or just isn't "open". The prospective employer you'd like to work for may not even think such a job is important. So what to do? Well, in this case, you create this job at the prospective employer.

4. Presenting: Once you have packaged your skills, found some targets and approached the prospective employer for a meeting (the interview) you'll need to present yourself to answer their main questions and concerns, to see the fit you have with their culture and team and to demonstrate the value you will bring as well as to assess your interest in working with them.

5. Negotiations: These include title, salary and total package, start date and perhaps the proposed career path that may be your future while you are with the company.

6. Closing: Closing the offer and starting your job.

7. Onboarding: The first 90-days at your new job are critical to set expectations and impute your value, understand the written and unwritten rules of the road and the personalities and politics involved.

8. Job Maintenance: This includes keeping and maintaining your job, your skill sets, working to position yourself for a promotion, building new skill sets and connections and making sure you have concrete deliverables and takeaways from your current job to prove to your next prospective employer what value you can add to them, based on what you added at your now current job (soon to be previous company).

9. Repeat Process: At some point you'll most likely begin looking again for a new job/position, either in the same company you are now working or externally.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


Do you know what often separates candidates who thrive when searching for a new job from candidates who struggle or continually come up empty handed?

Here it is.

Candidates who struggle when searching for a job are often controlled if not enslaved by  their ego, pride and social fears while they harbor an unhealthy fear of failure. To top it off, these folks are more often than not both approval and validation seeking and subscribe to success limiting myths and memes.

Unsurprisingly, these folks find the job search very difficult, uncertain and often fraught with stress and anxiety all while yielding very few job offers if any.

What is the solution?

It's critical l that candidates let go of their ego, pride and all social fears while reframing  any "fear of failure" as excitement and adventure. Approval-seeking behavior must also be killed off while the veracity of all memes must be continually revisited and discarded when proven untrue.

A candidate who is able to do this is well on his or her way to becoming unstoppable.