The Atarashift Blog
Insights for working in Japan
Guides, interviews, and honest advice for international talent building a career in Japan.
The Atarashift Blog
Guides, interviews, and honest advice for international talent building a career in Japan.
Japan's shukatsu calendar is fixed: PR from 1 March, interviews from 1 June, offers from 1 October. Only 51.6% of international graduates land a job here.
Japanese new-graduate job hunting, called shukatsu (就活), runs on a fixed national calendar. Three dates define it. Companies may begin public relations activities on 1 March of the year before you graduate. Screening and interviews may start on 1 June. Official job offers may be issued from 1 October. If you graduate in March 2027, your cycle opened in March 2026, more than a year before your degree.
That is the single most important thing to understand, and it is the thing most international students learn too late. The process is not competitive because the bar is impossibly high. It is competitive because everyone else started in your junior year.
Key Takeaways
- The government-requested schedule is fixed: PR from 1 March, screening from 1 June, official offers from 1 October, all in the year before graduation.
- Preparation realistically starts in your sophomore or junior year, through summer internships and self-analysis.
- 51.6% of international students who graduated in 2023 and did not continue studying found work in Japan.
- Around 80% are hired by companies with fewer than 1,000 employees, and about half of those have under 100.
- Changing your visa from Student to a work status takes one to three months, and applications open in January for an April start. This is a hard deadline, not a soft one.
- Budget roughly ¥4,000 to ¥65,000 for the whole process, depending mostly on whether you already own a suit.
Most Japanese companies hire new graduates in a single synchronised intake. Everyone applies at the same time, is screened at the same time, and starts work on 1 April together. There is no rolling graduate hiring the way there is in much of the world.
Because the intake is synchronised, the competition is too. Employer organisations follow a schedule requested by the government, which sets the earliest dates for each stage. The dates below come from JASSO's Job Hunting Guide for International Students 2027, the official English-language guide for students in Japan. The dates are not law, and informal contact between students and companies begins well before them, but they shape when everything actually happens.
The practical effect is that a process ending in April 2027 begins in March 2026. Preparation begins earlier still.
| Date | What opens | What you should have ready |
|---|---|---|
| 1 March, year before graduation | PR activities: company briefings, pre-entry, information sessions | Self-analysis done, industries researched, JLPT taken |
| 1 June, year before graduation | Screening: written tests, aptitude tests, interviews | Entry sheet written, resume prepared, interview answers rehearsed |
| 1 October, year before graduation | Official job offers (naitei) | Offer decision made, documents for the visa change started |
There is one carve-out worth knowing. Companies may begin the selection process earlier for students whose expertise has been assessed through a specialised-utilisation-type internship. That is one of the reasons internships matter more than they look.
Using the March 2027 graduating cohort as the example:
| When | What is happening |
|---|---|
| Sophomore year onward | Gather information about internships. Begin self-analysis. Study for the JLPT. |
| Summer, junior year | Summer internships: entry, selection, participation. |
| Autumn and winter, junior year | Autumn and winter internships. Industry and company research. Visiting alumni. |
| December and January | JLPT sitting. Application documents drafted. |
| 1 March 2026 | PR activities open. Joint company briefings begin. Pre-entry opens. |
| March to May 2026 | Company briefings, pre-entry, entry sheet submission. |
| 1 June 2026 | Screening opens. Written tests, aptitude tests, interviews. |
| June to September 2026 | Interview rounds. Provisional offers issued. |
| 1 October 2026 | Official job offers. Offer ceremonies (naiteishiki). |
| December 2026 to January 2027 | Status of residence change application. |
| April 2027 | Start work. |
If you graduate in September rather than March, you sit the same tests on the same schedule as the March cohort. In most cases you will still start work the following April, though some companies begin in October. Confirm this before you accept anything.
Pre-entry is how you register interest with a company before formally applying. It gets you onto the list for briefing sessions and selection information. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing, so the correct number of pre-entries is "more than feels necessary."
Joint briefing sessions put many companies in one venue. Individual sessions go deeper on one. Both run heavily from March.
The entry sheet (ES) is Japan's distinctive application document. It is not a resume. It is a set of essay questions on your motivation, your strengths, and what you worked hard at during your studies. You write it in Japanese, and the writing itself is part of what gets scored.
Companies assess your written Japanese here before they ever meet you. You will also submit a rirekisho, the standardised Japanese resume, which follows its own strict conventions. Our guide to the Japanese resume format covers what that document expects.
Written and aptitude tests follow. These typically combine language, basic mathematics, and personality assessment, and they are usually administered in Japanese.
Interviews run from June, usually across two or more rounds, ending with an executive. New-graduate interviews weigh character, cooperativeness, and adaptability more heavily than technical skill. The question set is close to fixed, which makes it prepareable: see our breakdown of Japanese interview questions.
When a company decides to hire you, the first contact is usually a phone call, followed by a written offer. At that point you have a provisional offer. It becomes an official offer once you submit a pledge or acknowledgement document confirming you intend to join.
Two things about that document surprise people. It is not legally binding, so you may keep job hunting after submitting it. But missing its deadline can get the offer cancelled outright. Treat the deadline as real even though the commitment is not.
If you are holding several offers, decline the ones you do not want quickly. JASSO is direct about why: delaying narrows the options for other students, and it affects how companies view hiring international students in future years.
The outcome gap is real. In 2023, 43,968 international students graduated and did not continue on to further study in Japan. Of those, 22,688 found employment here, a domestic employment rate of 51.6%.
JASSO's own diagnosis is timing. International students tend to start job hunting later than Japanese students, who begin during their junior year and treat the March opening as a starting gun. Arriving in June, when screening has already opened, means the briefings and pre-entry stages have passed.
The language filter compounds it. Entry sheets and written tests are Japanese-language gates that sit before any human conversation, so a candidate who would interview well never reaches the interview.
Japanese proficiency, first and most consistently. Companies assess your writing through the application form, then your listening and speaking through the interview. Around 70% of companies want business-intermediate Japanese or above at the point of the job offer, rising to around 90% once you have joined.
The employer survey behind that finding ranks the qualities companies want from international students. For humanities roles, communication ability comes first at 59.3% and Japanese ability second at 55.9%. Specialised knowledge is chosen by 10.2%. For science and engineering roles specialised knowledge rises to 37.2%, but communication and Japanese still lead.
If your Japanese is not there yet, that shapes which employers to target rather than whether to bother. Our guide on working in Japan without speaking Japanese covers where English-first roles concentrate.
One more expectation worth resetting: the famous company is not where most people land. According to Immigration Services Agency figures for 2023, around 80% of international students are hired by companies with fewer than 1,000 employees, and roughly half of those have fewer than 100. Many are subcontractors to household names, and some hold world-leading positions in narrow markets. Screening by company size rather than by what the company does removes most of your options for no good reason.
Everything above is a missed opportunity if you get it wrong. This part is different.
A job offer does not let you work. You must change your status of residence from Student to a status that permits employment. For most graduates that means Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services, which accounted for roughly 80% of student-to-work status changes in 2023.
The timing is unforgiving:
Miss it and you have an offer you cannot take up in April. Start gathering documents the moment your offer is confirmed, and chase your employer for their half early. The Engineer/Specialist in Humanities visa guide covers the eligibility rules, including how your major has to relate to the work.
Job hunting in Japan has real expenses, and nobody mentions them until you are in it. JASSO surveyed international students on what they actually spent:
| Item | Range |
|---|---|
| Suits, bags and similar | ¥15,000 to ¥70,000 |
| Transport | ¥0 to ¥60,000 |
| Accommodation | ¥0 to ¥10,000 |
| Reference books, postage, resume fees | ¥500 to ¥20,000 |
| ID photos | ¥1,000 to ¥15,000 |
| IT equipment (webcam, lighting) | ¥1,500 to ¥25,000 |
Three real totals from that survey: ¥61,000, ¥65,000, and ¥4,000. The spread is almost entirely about whether you already own a suit and how far you travel. One student reported spending nothing on transport because interviews were online, and another spent ¥25,000 on a camera and lighting for exactly that reason.
ID photos are the quiet cost. They are needed repeatedly, and students reported up to ¥15,000 on them alone.
You have three real options.
Year-round recruitment. A growing number of companies hire continuously rather than in the single spring intake. This is the most direct route back in, and whether a company does it is usually stated on its recruitment page.
Continue past October. Students who have not been hired keep going, and companies that did not fill their intake keep interviewing. The pool shrinks but does not close.
The job-hunting extension. If you graduate without an offer, you can change from Student to Designated Activities (Public Notice No. 46) and keep job hunting in Japan. It runs six months and may be renewed once, for a year in total. A second year is possible if you join a job-hunting support programme run by a local government and obtain a certificate from them.
Be realistic about what that year buys you, though. Government policy lets you apply as a new graduate for up to three years after graduation. Most companies still concentrate their hiring in a single cycle, so fewer roles are open off-cycle. Information is also harder to find, because you are applying outside the schedule everything else is built around.
One related status is worth knowing. Say you hold an offer that starts in April of the following year. You can stay in Japan in the meantime under Designated Activities (for persons with job offers). It is a separate application from the job-hunting version, because the activity is different.
For the process end to end, see our full guide to getting a job in Japan as a foreigner. It also covers the mid-career route, if the new-graduate track has closed for you.
When should international students start job hunting in Japan?
Preparation should begin in your sophomore or junior year with internships, self-analysis, and JLPT study. The formal cycle opens on 1 March of the year before you graduate, when company PR activities and pre-entry begin. Starting in the spring of your final year is already late.
What are the shukatsu dates for students graduating in March 2027?
PR activities opened on 1 March 2026, screening and interviews opened on 1 June 2026, and official job offers can be issued from 1 October 2026. Visa change applications open around December 2026 to January 2027, for an April 2027 start.
What is an entry sheet, and is it the same as a resume?
No. An entry sheet is a company-specific set of essay questions covering your motivation, strengths, and what you worked hard at as a student. It is submitted alongside a rirekisho, the standardised Japanese resume. Both are usually written in Japanese, and the entry sheet is where your written Japanese is first assessed.
What Japanese level do I need for shukatsu?
Around 70% of companies expect business-intermediate Japanese or above at the time of the job offer, and around 90% expect it once you have joined. JLPT N2 is a common practical floor for new-graduate recruitment, and N1 is widespread among successful candidates.
How long does it take to change from a student visa to a work visa?
Screening takes one to three months from application. Applications are generally accepted from January, though the Tokyo and Osaka bureaus usually begin in December, so that new graduates can start work in April. Some documents must be prepared by your employer, so start early.
Is a naitei a binding job offer?
A provisional offer becomes an official offer when you submit a pledge or acknowledgement document. That document is not legally binding, so you may continue job hunting afterwards. However, missing its submission deadline can cause the offer to be cancelled.
Do most international students get hired by large companies?
No. Around 80% are hired by companies with fewer than 1,000 employees, and about half of those have fewer than 100. Many small and mid-sized Japanese firms hold leading technology or market positions, so filtering by company size alone eliminates strong options.
Sources
All figures retrieved August 2026.
Japanese income tax runs 5% to 45%, plus 10% residence tax and around 15% social insurance. The residence tax lag is what catches foreign employees out.
Japanese paid leave is a legal right, not a favour. Take-up hit a record 66.9% in 2024, and your employer is legally required to make you use 5 days.
Japan's standard permanent residency route takes 10 years, but most people qualify sooner. A February 2026 rule change creates a 31 March 2027 deadline.
