Universities see growth in postgraduate job seekers

The Yomiuri Shimbun

More universities have begun helping alumni find new employment, often through subsidiaries or tie-ups with recruitment agencies.
The trend comes as more graduates leave their first postgraduate jobs after just a few years. But the trend also is an indicator of the increasing competitiveness between universities to recruit students by touting a caring nature as the nation sees a decline in the student population.
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New career, old school
Last spring, Daisuke Yamashita, a 28-year-old graduate of Waseda University's Education Department, quit his job of more than four years at a software development company and started working for a secondhand car magazine publisher called Proto Corp. At the publisher, Yamashita's dream to have an Internet-related job came true and he was entrusted to operate a Web site about secondhand car information.
"Many people use the Web site, so I find it [the job] rewarding," Yamashita said.
In getting the new job, Yamashita received help from The Campus Corp., a subsidiary the university started in 1990 originally to help soon-to-be graduates find jobs.
Over recent years the university's job placement office has been contacted by a growing number of graduates hoping to find new jobs. The university saw the need for a new support system, separate from the one that helps current students, and started a system to help graduates in October 2004.
Under the new system, a graduate registers with Campus, which then has a consultant meet the graduate to discuss job preferences. The consultant introduces the graduate to companies listed on the company's Web site.
Even after the graduate has unofficially found new employment using the system, the consultant negotiates with the company that is hiring the graduate regarding salary and other issues. The service is free for alumni with Campus being paid a fee from the company that has employed the graduate.
Campus makes sure to support job-seeking alumni with priority on the graduate's preferences. The university believes that helping graduates find jobs that the applicant is suited for is better than quick results.
"If I think a new job doesn't suit our customer, I sometimes advise him or her not to get the job," said Hideyo Takeda, one of Campus' consultants.
Such sincerity makes the company a user favorite. At the moment, more than 300 alumni are registered with Campus.
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Good for university business
Japan Job Posting Service, Inc. (JJPS) in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, provides Campus with an operating system for its business. JJPS plans to provide several universities with a similar system and has received inquiries for the system from other universities.
"If you think of the university like a manufacturer, alumni are its products. If many alumni become so-called freeters [part-time workers who often switch jobs], that can damage the university's reputation," JJPS President Hiroyuki Yoneyama said.
Some universities support job-seeking alumni while they use employment agencies. In November, Kansai University tied up with Kansai Employment Creation Organization, Inc., an Osaka-based affiliate of the employment agency Pasona Group, to support alumni free of charge. The university had been busy helping graduates seeking new jobs as more than 50 alumni have registered with the university's job placement office for two consecutive years.
Besides Pasona, more than 30 companies hoping to find employees have used Kansai Employment, so the company always has a supply of fresh job vacancy information. The organization also provides a variety of training programs, including interview training. Because of Kansai Employment's reputation, the university decided to team up with the company to help its alumni.
In the first three months since the tie-up was made, about 600 graduates visited the university's job placement office and more than half of them hope to be registered with the organization.
The average alumnus visiting the office for consultation is in their late 20s who have an averages of about five years of postgraduate work experience. Eighty percent of applicants are men. Most women registered with the organization are contract employees looking for permanent jobs.
The university is highly motivated and through the support system aims to become a power in producing students who land jobs, it said.
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Sign of the times
According to a Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry survey, the rate of university graduates who leave their first job after three years is between 30 percent and 40 percent.
Most job vacancy information sent to universities is tailored for graduates wanting to change jobs after the first year and up to the first three years of employment. This trend has sparked an increase in the number of graduates visiting university job placement offices.
Atomi University's job placement office also receives many worried alumni who come for consultation about their jobs and say they want to find a better employment.
But Miki Toyoshima of the university's job placement office said: "There's also a trend that graduates are not serious enough and just want to work for another company. I hope they won't change their jobs with such indifference."
(Feb. 8, 2006)

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/20060208TDY04004.htm