ABSTRACT
Compared to other countries, the university-to-work transition in Japan is a unique process. Following the so-called simultaneous recruiting of new graduates system, the companies recruit students during one set period before graduation, and for those in the social sciences and humanities, the job content is often largely irrelevant to what the students studied in their university. Student's job-hunting activities start one year ahead of graduation, which is quite early compared to that of many other countries in the world. This chapter clarifies the participants' unique experiences when entering the university-to-work transition in Japan in order to understand their perceptions of such experiences and how these experiences shaped their decisions about working in Japan. The implications are that although the existing university-to-work transition may have functioned with a certain "homogeneous" population at a certain period in Japanese society, in light of globalization, and the diversity it brings, the university-to-work transition system in Japan needs to adjust.
