I recently interviewed with a Japanese company. It did not go well and after going over it a few times in my head, I'm not sure how legal some of the commentary was.
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Background: I came to Japan to meet some clients and an employer I had an unofficial offer from in the beginning of March. The offer was rescinded, due to COVID's impact on the tourism sector, and I was ultimately stuck here. I had planned to relocate anyway, so I've been hunting for jobs. My husband is still stuck abroad, but he'll also be coming over once his contract finishes later this year. We've both lived in Japan before his work took him out of the country, so we're not new to the rodeo.
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The interview was scheduled really quickly. As in, they called me back the day after I applied and asked if I could come in the following day at X time. I thought it was a little odd that they didn't ask for my availability or anything, but I just told them when would be best for me. I -was- apprehensive about an in-person interview, but it seems some companies haven't decided to adapt to the situation.
The first half of the interview went fairly standard, although seemed unusually thorough. They asked me the standard questions of like, how's your health, why I'm interested in the position, where I live, etc. But they also asked me about my parents (and their health), my brother (and his health), and about my husband. They were a bit surprised, but seemed to understand that the situation with COVID has sort of made a lot of folks' plans change. The one thing they didn't really understand was why I was moving from Yokohama to Chiba, but I didn't think it was an issue.
Then they both get a bit nervous and call in the company president for the last half of the interview.
I didn't understand why they seemed anxious until I met him. He was the rudest Japanese man I've ever met (so far). He didn't use ’š”JŒê (polite speech), during an interview, and even referred to me as ‚ ‚ñ‚½ (casual/rude form of "you"). Some of his questions *were* valid ("Why don't you have N1? Don't you want to challenge yourself?", "Why do you want to work here?"), but they were always followed by backhanded insults.
On the health note, I'm currently healthy, but I previously had surgery. That set him off, since apparently you can't ever be healthy again if you've had surgery (?) and he went so far as to say that in Japan, they just give you medication to fix the problem I had - which isn't true, since it was a Japanese doctor that recommended surgery to begin with.
At one point, he just kept saying I couldn't use Japanese - despite the fact that the entire interview was conducted in Japanese and that he confirmed I worked in two Japanese offices in the past. That comment got some surprise out of the younger interviewer, but he understandably kept his mouth shut. Now, my Japanese isn't great, but it's most definitely not terrible. I'm admittedly weak with reading, but he had one of the guys pull out a formal business proposal and wanted me to read it aloud, as if that proved I could do the job or not (which was supposed to be working with their foreign customers). He wouldn't accept a summary of what was written either and threw his hands up on the first reading I got wrong.
He tore down my achievements, saying freelance work isn't a job and that if I had so much free time, I should've been studying for the N1. (I was more focused on my freelance projects, many of which are actually noteworthy...but he had a point insomuch as I could've been improving my language skills.) He actually said that they had a lot of applicants from my study abroad program and they were all N1 - which is 99.999% a lie, because that program was dissolved close to a decade ago due to it being so bad; the students joked about it constantly.
He also got weirdly focused on why I was apart from my husband, saying that I'd just leave whenever borders opened back up. He wouldn't accept any answer I had - topping it with "You're a selfish wife, aren't you?". That was kind of what cut me the worst.
Oh, and he forced me to remove my mask in the office, so that was a thing that happened. During a pandemic.
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Sooooooo yeah, I made it outside and around the corner before I let myself cry. It was definitely more of a mental beat down than an interview. I've generally had positive experiences interviewing in Japan, so it was very much a shock.
My husband and I were wondering if it was just because I was married, since that was definitely a point of fixation for him, or if they did that to all their applicants...and if so, just how legal is that?
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