James will speaking on the very timely and important career-related topic of "I'm 40 Now! Is It Really Game Over For Me In Japan's Job Market?" at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on November 20th.

Arguably no group of job seekers has been more negatively affected by this brutal reality than 40+ year old job seekers.

Many job seekers are shocked to find this is the reality not only in the broader US economy but even in vaunted Silicon Valley which is the supposed Mecca of open-mindedness and where, we are told, a meritocracy has reigned for decades.

And yet, for how bad it is in the US and even Silicon Valley, 40+ year old job seekers soon come to find that it's often much, much worse in Japan. Terrible. Impossibly frustrating. Depressing. These are words that come to mind when seeking employment in Japan as a 40+ year old candidate.

But how can this be the case in Japan, when Japan still has an economy which is the 3rd largest economy in the world and which is moving to further internationalize its businesses as rapidly as possible in the face of both falling domestic demand and a severe shortage of experienced workers.

The bottom line is this: 

Older, deeply experienced job seekers quickly run into five (5) seemingly insurmountable brick walls.

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!


There's a very pervasive and dangerous meme in the world today that suggests that businesses create jobs or are even "in the business of creating jobs".

Nothing could be further from the truth as Peter Drucker observed many years:

"The purpose of business is to create and keep customers."

That's it. Period.

"So what? Why should I care about this?", you may ask yourself. 

Simple.  

Because when one understands that job creation is not the goal of business but rather an extremely unwanted byproduct of creating, serving and retaining customers a powerful shift of mindset results.

The fact remains that if a company were able to, they would hire no one. There's absolutely no benefit in employing people unless the employees are creating value such as increasing revenues, creating assets or decreasing costs.

New jobs (in the private sector) are created only (in the vast majority of the cases) when a company finds that it can no longer create, serve and retain its customers with the existing workforce.

When you understand this and take this to heart, you can then make the mental shift to realize that any approach during a job search that views landing a job as either a lottery or an act of charity is doomed to always underperform if not flat out fail.

Conversely, by understanding how and why jobs are created and why companies are ultimately in business (and what keeps them there) as well as what they are not in business for (e.g.g, creating jobs), you'll have a major leg up on your competition by understanding you must Never, Ever Beg but Always Bring Value.

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!


There's a common response or reaction among both students who have just graduated and have "no luck finding a job" and among working professionals who have been routinely passed over for promotion or who are currently having  "no luck finding a job".

So what exactly is that response or reaction?

Come on, you know what it is -- These people must all be somehow lacking in something and that something is "education" or "knowledge" which can be easily be "fixed" by "going back to school".

Now, while "going back to school" sounds good on the surface (after all, we can never be too educated or too knowledgeable, right?) it ignores many factors and even presents risks and dangers to your current (or budding) career as well as your future career.

Just because you are not hired or you are passed over for promotion it doesn't mean that you are lacking any knowledge. In fact, in some cases (many cases actually) involving office politics and power you will be passed over not because you lack anything but because you are too good or too knowledgeable.

With that said, even if you do lack knowledge, there is no guarantee that pursuing a new formal education will provide you with the necessary skills or knowledge you desire or think you need.

In fact, it may be far cheaper to study or develop those skills on your own or, if you must, you can simply take some short and very  focused certification classes.

You also would be well advised to determine exactly what skills you are lacking and then ask yourself if your being passed over for a promotion or not landing a job has anything to do with a lack of skills.

In most cases, it doesn't. Instead, we can isolate the problem in areas such as:
1. Your resume -- the way your skills are packaged and productized.
2. Your interviewing skills -- how do you communicate and convey your value.
3. The way you locate or surface positions.
4. And so forth.

Collectively, I term these the "Job Search 4P's" or "4P's of Job Searches".

Going back to school can also be extremely expensive both in direct costs for tuition and out of pocket costs as well as the opportunity costs of not working (assuming you are going full time, you've forgone that salary) and in the case of taking out loans you then risk limiting your option for jobs in the future as you now have an additional fixed overhead.

In some cases you'll find that this new knowledge increases you career options but conversely and simultaneously having this new debt also reduces your options.

So what should a person do?

Well, look around. As just one example. if you are passed over for a promotion and you are told "you need an MBA", why not open your eyes and confirm if every other manager in your firm (or industry) has an MBA.

Trust me, they don't.

And you'll quickly see that not only does not everyone have an MBA (MBA as just one example, not to pick on any degree) but that, lo and behold, some managers don't even have a college degree!

There are many other factors to research and analyze beyond this but the best way to do it is to simply make the most of what you have now while tweaking and testing it in the job market.

Because the job market's response to you is all that matters. No degree, certificates or anything else matters. Are you getting invited to interviews? Are you getting written offers? That's what matters.

Specifically, you need to SWAN & tweak before you decide to "go back to school".

What is SWAN? Well, the SWAN principle is:

Sell
What's
Available
Now

Whatever skills you have now, make the most of them in your job search (and/or at your present job). This may be using them to develop a visible and provable portfolio (volunteering or working to create tie-off projects, etc.) where these skills are demonstrated and productized.

Using the SWAN principle will also force you to improve how you package, present, communicate and convey your skills and value to your current employer or prospective employer.

Forget your dreams about all the attention your shiny new degree will supposedly bring you and focus on selling what you have now and the value you can add to a prospective employer -- right now.

Once you know what you are doing it becomes like shooting fish in a barrel.

And you'll find that you don't need to go back to school, at least not "now", in almost every single case.

*Just to note, in this case, I use the term Job Search 4P's to describe a set of specialized job search skills as well as one overall process of the job search lifecycle. If you are familiar with classical marketing literature there is also the Marketing 4P's which are Product, Place (distribution), Promotion and Price.

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!

I had the good fortune to be invited to participate in the 2014 After JET Conference's Career Panel which was held at the Pacifico Yokohama (Yokohama, Japan) on February 21st. 

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


There's been a lot of talk and debate over the last few years as to the value of the "'lowly" Liberal Arts degree. 

A variety of pundits and talking heads have even gone so far as to argue that there's no value to be had in such a degree, especially when one factors in the direct costs incurred during the course of earning the degree as well as the opportunity costs associated with the four years unemployment typically experienced while the student studies for the degree.

To all of these pundits and all of this punditry I have but one word: 

Hogwash!

I'm here to tell you that Liberal Arts degree, in and of itself, is most likely fine. 

Just fine.

"What? James, are you serious or just totally delusional?! "

Yes, I'm serious and no, I'm not delusional. 

There are many reasons why I am certain that the Liberal Arts degree is not a "Death Wish For Careers" which I won't go into at this time, however, it is readily apparent ot me that plenty of value can be extracted from both the pursuit and earning of a Liberal Arts degree. In turn, this acquired and derive value can be used to great positive effect during a Liberal Arts degree-holder's pursuit of  professional employment.

And as an aside, plenty of value can also be extracted and shown to a prospective employer by even non-degree holding job seekers/job applicants as well.

Here's The Real Deal In A Nutshell:
 The Liberal Arts degree itself is fine, provided that you have studied and learned your subject matter to some basic level of competency but more importantly learned HOW to study when acquiring new information in the future and without direction or prodding from your professor or other authority figure.

Now, reports have come back from many if not most Liberal Arts grads saying how tough a time they face looking for meaningful (versus underemployment or unemployment) employment after having graduated.

There is no doubt that with few exceptions Liberal Arts grads have it harder, but what they face is by no means insurmountable, it's more about filling in a few gaps, buffing out a few dings and learning how to use the value they already have created and possess to their advantage.

For instance, most Liberal Arts majors or grads could greatly enhance their job market value and the buying temperature of prospective employers by simply and quickly adding a few skills which may range from basic tech or analytical skills to work facilitation and work environment skills  as well as the job search strategies, tactics and techniques that are needed to wrap around these core or foundational skill sets to land that coveted or desired job.

We've discussed this before but we can never do it enough:
1. Being good at doing the job is not the same as being good at getting a job.
2. It's not the degree you earned that's killing your job search.

What this means is that not all degrees are created equal in terms of the way they are perceived by prospective employers in particular and the job market in general.

This is not good or bad, it is just the way it is. And that's okay. Once we have tuned into reality, we can own it.

Specifically, the less value your degree is perceived to have in the job market or the lower the value that your degree signals or imputes to the job market (and/or the greater the supply of similar candidates in the job market holding the same credential) the greater your skill in understanding and applying the Job Search 4P's* must be.

Specifically, the Job Search 4P's are positioning, packaging, presenting and promoting skills as well as a candidate's ability to communicate and convey value (C&C) to a prospective employer.

Conversely, if you have a "stronger" degree (that is the perceived value of said degree is that stronger or more greatly valued in the job market) or employers clearly understand how to monetize (or have monetized) or they feel they can more readily monetize a particular degree (such as a  computer science or business degrees), all things being equal, you'll need far less proficiency in the application of the Job Search 4P's during your job search. 

Once you know what you're doing it becomes like shooting fish in a barrel.

If you have one of these higher in-demand, easier to map or more readily communicable  degrees and you know how to use the Job Search 4P's like a boss, well, in such a case, you'll quickly find yourself in such high demand that you'll basically lord over and rule the job market.

And that's a very enviable position to be in!

*Just to note, in this case, I use the term Job Search 4P's to describe a set of specialized job search skills as well as one overall job search process. If you are familiar with classical marketing literature there is also the Marketing 4P's which are Product, Place (distribution), Promotion and Price.

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.