A little story about my job hunting progress since that fateful day where I was condemned that my sensei is not and will not recommend me to continue to the doctoral degree. I visited the career center on my campus which I hope can give me some lists of companies that I might be able to try. It is even before Covid-19 strikes.
I made an appointment and did the counseling. You know, their suggestion was like: "Oh, so you don't have JLPT certificate and has limited communication capability. It's gonna be hard.", "Why don't you return to the previous company?", "Unless you are very skillful, it will be tough.". I don't blame them for saying those things, they barely know my background, story, and ideals. Those are normal reactions, my question is, why are they even exist? What is their job desc other than asking the students about the job hunting situation every now and then? I don't receive any support but instead, I feel pressured. I am seriously pressured by those emails asking me about my job-hunting situation and to fill the job-hunting report.
Lastly, they suggested me to have career counseling with a Japanese sensei from another lab that handles student employment and another counselor from outside. Again, I don't think those are supportive. I mean, everyone will ask the same question. But to be honest the replies from the sensei are much better than anyone I met so far.
Skip forward several weeks and poof, Covid-19 hits Japan. As expected, this results in a lot of businesses become in limbo, especially those relying on the tourist as their main income since it happened in late March-April, the peak of tourists season which I have described in the previous post (I forget which one, I will put the link here if I remember). As a result, many businesses went bankrupt and I don't know the details if there are any supports from the government regarding this. What I know is the government gave 100k yen to each person indiscriminately. Would it help? For a month or two it may be fine, but not longer than that.
Yet, the career center keeps doing their job, blasting emails about seminars from companies held in Japanese. Even if the QnA session could be done in English, it is not helpful for people like me since it will make me ask dumb questions and put me in a position where the speaker would think I didn't pay attention. What I need is just a mere list of companies that don't care about language capabilities and would hire people with a skill set like mine. Which what my sensei did this week. Very nice of him after what he did last December.
Following the lockdown and social distancing rule, the businesses were forced to have their employees work from home which already been 'planned' for far far too long but never really put into realization until this time. They also couldn't lay off their full-time employees that easy but for a huge number of part-time workers, it is another story. Ah, do you know that these part-time and non-regular workers made almost half of the employment chart?
My friend worked in a foreign company branch in Japan. She told me that her monthly salary was cut-down to 80% but it was still better than nothing (much better since she lives in a subsidized company share house). Then here comes another problem, the hiring curb. Imagine you are an employer who is trying hard to make money in this situation, would you add another financial burden to your company by hiring a new employee who you have to train for several months before he can even contribute to your business?
This is what I see in this situation. There are two big groups here. Let me divide it by nationalities. The foreigners and the locals. Each group has two categories; The employed and non-employed which not only counts the people who are unable to work anymore, but also includes students and those who currently not working (due to laid-off part-time workers or just simply quit at the wrong time for instance). This situation also forced many unlucky people from the employed group to fall into the unemployed. These people are supposed to be experienced in their careers and in my opinion, have a higher chance to be hired back. While the students especially foreign students who can barely communicate and considered unexperienced will face a big hurdle in finding an ideal job.
As an employer, who would you like to hire suppose there are three skilled candidates? The experienced one would be the best bet; but if we exclude that option, choosing between your own people and the foreigner who can barely communicate? The answer is obvious. So, I give up my hopes and dreams, my ideals and expectations. If I can't find a job here, then that's it.
Enough about my rants. So how's research? How's my master study going?
In short, towards completion.
So I had my Go/NoGo presentation last Monday together with another friend of mine who will also graduate in September (she continues to doctorate though). In Go/NoGo presentation, the students who are going to graduate have to present their master thesis in front of the lab faculty. That time I wasn't prepared that much since my last seminar so I just reused the slides and presented it the same way I did during the seminar. The result was so bad that my Prof gave me a second chance to revise my presentation in 2 days. I asked almost all the faculty members to help me revise my presentation and finally on Thursday, it went well. Big thanks to my supervisor, my previous supervisor (from the previous group), and the other sensei from the other group also. In the day of the second-presentation I also received some help from my PhD senior whom I have a complicated feeling with. I mean, we are not even that close to begin with even though we share the same hobby (yes, anime). Maybe it is me who cannot build a trusty good interpersonal relationship with anyone.
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