I’ve been continuing job hunting for half a year now and I personally think this activity is ridiculous. I don’t know if it’s because of the pandemic, but I just feel that it’s impossible for me to reach the end of this journey. It may sound like I’m complaining and whining, but I’m just trying to express my thoughts about this topic.

First of all, I never understood why companies try to dig so deeply into why we want to apply for that certain company. They also expect us to do research and know everything about the company we’re trying to apply to. They expect it as if it’s natural, and it never made sense to me. Why? We applied to know you. We never worked with you, never had experience in the working force, yet why do recruiters expect we speak like a professional, knowing what and why we wanna do stuff. It just seemed ridiculous. It makes more sense if you ask this to people who transferred from one job to another, or basically just people who had experience being part of the workforce.

But to ask this to fresh graduates? What are companies expecting from us? The fact that they emphasize the ‘reason for applying’ itself is weird. It made it seem like there’s a right and wrong for the reason itself. Why would one’s motivation to apply for a job be wrong?

It’s just sad that your pure interest alone is not enough for you to appeal to the company. You can talk about a bunch of stuff like promoting your skillset or talking about how your personality fits with the company culture. But I really think it’s bullshit. Why is it that despite long stages of screening and interview, trying to find the perfect employee, companies still have high turnover or end up with the candidate that they’re not expecting? Because there’s no such thing as a perfect employee. No one’s perfect. That’s common knowledge, yet companies still try to seek out that ‘perfection’. If someone seems so perfect, you know something’s not right.

Companies make it so hard for fresh graduates to land a job so they start mass-applying. And now companies struggle going through hundreds of CV each day. And what do they do? They just use machine and online tests to screen out people and yet, recruiters somehow still have a hard time dealing with candidates. Now they add pre-recorded interviews to the screening process to further ease the work of the HR department. Wow. I guess we are not even worth your time for a first-step interview?

Another question that never made sense to me is, ‘What do you want to do in this company?’ This question is absolutely ridiculous, especially in Japanese settings. Here in Japan, most positions available for fresh graduates are called generalist or 総合職 (sougoushoku). It means when you apply for the position, you won’t know what kind of job you’ll end up doing until you get hired and assigned by the company. Knowing this, they still ask what we want to do? People usually tell me to answer what my future targets are or what position I hope to get. But if the position you’re aiming for is not to open currently in the company, then they will treat you as if you’re not the right candidate for their current open positions. What a joke.

I mentioned online tests earlier, which is also one of the most unreasonable steps in the screening process. Especially for foreigners. 99% of the time, the test will be conducted in Japanese. It’s hard enough for native speakers to pass this test, but they insist on having foreigners taking the same test and evaluation. The test will measure your language skill, calculation skill, and also your personality. Is it important? Maybe. Do these skills always have a direct relation with the job/position? Nope. Yet they still require it.

Japan’s facing a decline in the young population so they’re trying to attract the workforce from abroad. But with the current standards and hiring process they have, I doubt it’ll help the issue. It may seem okay for now, but definitely not in the long run. I really love this country, and I really want to stay here, but I guess its’ time to open my eyes and face reality that they probably just don’t appreciate people (especially foreigners) who put this much effort to work here.

I swear problems never stop coming into my life. Although this week is somewhat less hectic, I still had to run around town to do stuff. I discovered only recently that I couldn’t withdraw money from my home country’s bank account for some reason. My mom tried to contact the customer center but they didn’t hear her out because she’s not the card owner. So I had to contact the customer center myself through my Japanese number. God knows how much I’ll get charged next month for this international call. Ugh.

I also had to go to campus (for the first time in 4 months, on a super rainy day) to take care of my Visa extension. My parents and I both agree that it’s safer for me to stay in Japan for the time being rather than going home since the situation in the home country is definitely far worse. So in order to do that, I had to apply for Visa extension. And to do get that extension, I have to request a recommendation letter from the university. AND to get that damn letter, I had to fill in 5 pages of application form that states 1) I have enough money to stay in Japan for the next 6 months after graduation, 2) I am doing job-hunting seriously, 3) I have a proof of previously failed job-hunting attempts, 4) I have a list of several companies that I am currently applying to. Also, in addition to the form, I also had to compile past emails that serve as proof that I am really doing job-hunting here. What a way to go, Japan. All of this just for a recommendation letter. Who knows how the actual Visa application will go.

Oh, and they’ll have interviews with me if they deem my application OK.

Frustrating stuff aside, yesterday, I got woken up at 10 am by the mailman and found out that my keycaps for the mechanical keyboard are here! I was totally excited that even my fatigue and sleepiness just disappeared the instant I received the package.

Although the original keycaps are definitely prettier and look better with the keyboard backlights, the new one I got is actually easier to type with. Since it’s lower than the original keys, it takes less effort to reach for and push the keys.

The final outcome looks really nice in my opinion. It gives off that old/vintage keyboard look that I used to have back home. Although normal rainbow backlights look horrible with it, I managed to modify the lighting a bit so that it’s at least pleasant to look at haha. I’m quite happy with this purchase and it actually arrived quicker than I expected despite ordering off from Aliexpress.

This ends my uneventful week. Thesis submissions are open starting next week and I hope to submit mines soon (currently struggling with plagiarism checker stuff). My friends and I agreed to another karaoke session to blow off some steam once we all submitted our thesis! (At this point, we may seem like we have no other outlets for having fun, but that’s the reality if you live in the countryside.)

Boundaries of day and time have almost completely disappeared for me. I guess staying indoors for too long really makes one’s senses about time blurred. Anyways, we’re already in the middle of the year. It feels unreal that the time spent I’ve spent self-quarantining has already amounted to 4 months now.

Highlights

• Actually progressing in job hunting and getting interviews from 2 companies
• Also failed the aforementioned interviews (LOL)
• Farewell party with my seminar colleagues. Everyone’s going so far away.
• Almost done with my thesis! Final spur!
• Loving my two new gadgets: mechanical keyboard and speaker
• Got selected as an emergency scholarship recipient. My financial burden will surely decrease with this.

I’m grateful for

• The existence of the alumni community that supports students with free groceries in this time of crisis
• Friends who never stop supporting me and encouraging me no matter how annoyingly negative I get
• My family being healthy despite all the recent developments in Indonesia. I pray that they will stay healthy from now on as well.

I need to

• Submit my thesis by 7/16
• Find a part-time job if I fail my interviews haha
• Eat more fruits (currently loving kiwi and lemon-infused water)
• Maybe exercise …

I’m looking forward to

• Spending quality time for myself by learning things that I love (finishing my videography class, picking up new programming language, practice acrylic/watercolor painting, etc.)
• The day where we all can roam around again without excessively worrying about this damn virus

I hope you all had a great June as well!

This might just be the busiest week that I’ve encountered in the entire month solely for the reason of interviews and numerous personal appointments I have with people.

Monday started with me getting a one-on-one mock interview with the people from career office to prepare me for an upcoming company interview for the next day.

Tuesday itself was a disaster as I thought I completely blew up the whole interview by not answering questions properly. Immediately got depressed for the rest of the day.

Wednesday, I received an email from a different company stating that I had passed their screening and that they would like to have me do an online prerecorded interview.

Thursday, I spent the whole day researching about the second company, booking another mock interview appointment, and also preparing for the interview with the first company.

Friday, I did the mock interview, the online prerecorded interview, and also went to my friend’s place for a farewell party. It was also super hectic as the first company also sent me a sudden email that requests me to complete another separate entry sheet (it’s like a mini CV) for tomorrow’s interview.

Saturday, I woke up early just to feel very exhausted and lethargic because of the weather (it was thunderstorms). Did the interview at 12 and felt like I was able to answer most of the questions. But for some reason, I feel like I did not impress the other party, so … Uh. Then I just spent the rest of the day resting and playing Animal Crossing just to attend this month’s Bug Off event.

Sunday, it just rained the whole day while I had to go out to take free groceries distributed by the school. Carrying 4kg of rice and other stuff in the middle of the rain was quite a challenge haha. I got back home thinking that I could finally work on my thesis, but no. My mom suddenly called and asked me to go to the bank and do some errands for her friend’s son. (Though I took this chance to go to the bank that’s near Muji so I can do extra shopping). I bought a pair of short pants, two packs of instant curry, and a lunchbox. It’s not the cheapest thing but I needed this stuff to survive summer and constantly staying at home. Even though it’s a lot of trouble, I guess it’s worth the journey haha.

I’m hoping that I’ll hear good news next week regarding my job hunting progress. We’re entering the latter half of the year now!

I just had my interview this Tuesday and I’ve never felt so judged in my life haha. I know judging people is the job of the interview, but what good does it do if you make the interviewee uncomfortable and unable to explain things the way they want?

All this time, I’ve prepared for interview with the typical Japanese question formats. But this time, it was completely Western-styled stuff and I was really thrown off by the fact that they would ask these kind of questions in the first round of the interview.

Of course, it’s my fault for not preparing properly and I guess it’s also a part of my luck that the interview ended up this way. I did my best to answer the questions but because I was half panicking, I wasn’t able to explain things to their fullest and I kind of stumbled a lot of times. I’m pretty sure the interviewer was struggling to understand what I’m trying to say lol.

Oh well, I kinda fumbled up this time, better luck next time, I guess?

Edit: I don't know how, but I passed the first interview. 
I'm confused but I'm really thankful at the same time haha. 

Edit 2: Did my 2nd interview. Waiting for results.

I decided to write about the tiny progress of my whole week! It’s week 25/53 of 2020. An overall relaxed but a somewhat hectic week!

Achievements

• Made a weekly art (featured header image!)
• I received an invitation for an online interview with a company!
• Online meeting with a career advisor to prepare for the interview
• Thesis meeting with the professor to tweak my final draft
• Updated my English CV for a certain company

Exciting (and other random) events

• My laptop’s backspace key stopped functioning (yes I struggled to write this whole post)
• I got myself a new 60% keyboard and a speaker!
• Held another karaoke session with my friends to release more stress

Looking forward to a great new week! How was yours?