Why Your Japanese-Translated Final Year Project is a Requirement for Job Hunting in Japan as a New Graduate
When entering Japan’s New Graduate Recruitment System, having no work experience is seen as a good thing. This can signal to Japanese companies that you will be easier to train according to their specific needs and to help you adapt to company culture. If you have no work experience indicated in your resume, though, how do Japanese companies gauge your interests, technical skills, and ability to work with a team? That’s where your final year project comes in. A lot of this they will learn from your Final Year Project. That’s why the Final Year Project, translated to Japanese, is one of the few mandatory requirements for qualified applicants before they start job hunting with FAST OFFER International.
“The most important improvement that made a difference was regarding my Final Year Project. When Japanese companies hire new graduates, they take your Final Year Project as a basis for “work experience.” This is where they see your skills and specialties in use, and where your working interest lies.” Read more: From Coding Languages in High School to Engineering in Japan
How You’ll Use Your Final Year Project For Job Hunting in Japan
- Discuss it During Your Screening Process with Us. This will help us get to know you, your career goals, and the kind of work you eventually want to do in Japan. This influences the kinds of companies we think will fit your profile.
- “I had an interview with the FAST OFFER International staff. I told them my goal: to be a design engineer because it was my forte. I’d sharpened my skills through experiences designing products with programming languages… through my previous internships and graduation projects. My experience showed me that designing physical products through programming languages is something I enjoy and excel at.” Read more: The Surprising Key to Their Mechanical Engineer Career in Japan
- Polish Your Profile for Job Matching. You need to submit your translated final year project and mention it in your self-introduction video briefly. Japanese companies will gauge your fit according to your submission.
- “While preparing for the interviews, I practiced answering common questions such as my strengths, weaknesses, and motivation to work, and also prepared a brief explanation of my final year project using a PowerPoint presentation. I sought help from my supervisor for my final year project and friends for interview practice, and received meaningful advice from my mentor. ” Read more: Why I Chose to Study and Work in Japan as a Mechanical Engineer from Pakistan.
- Discuss It During the Job Interviews. For Japanese job interviews, some companies require a quick presentation about your final year project. Some companies will also discuss your experience and product with you.
- “In the first interview at the second company, I was asked mainly about the Final Year Project and the project I am working on at my current company. I was able to answer the questions well because I prepared well.” Read more: From Mumbai to Tokyo: An Indian Computer Science Graduate’s Success Story
What are Japanese Companies looking for when examining your final year project?
- Values alignment. Why you chose the topic of your final year project shows your interests and values. Ideally, this should be on the same page as the company’s.
- Skill potential. Your final year project shows your practical use of theoretical knowledge—how well your academic training has paid off. Thus, even though Japanese companies don’t require new grads to have all the technical skills upon hiring, they can gauge how well you’ll respond to their training.
- Ability to work with a team. Teamwork is incredibly vital in Japanese corporate culture. Since most final year projects are done with a team, it’s a way to talk about how you worked and help bring out the best from your team. This soft skill is not something that can be easily taught and is foundational to your capacity to succeed in Japan.
- Your technical communication skills in Japanese. This skill can greatly affect how you work with a team of Japanese speakers. This also shows your ability to explain complex ideas in Japanese.
- How do you strive for excellence? The quality of your final year project should speak for itself. Given the assumption that your final year project is something you are genuinely interested in and passionate about, were you satisfied with the results, or were you mediocre?
“I didn’t think my Final Year Project would be so vital to my job hunt, but when it occurred to me how much it was holding me back, I fixed it. Now, the application runs accurately. When FAST OFFER International offered to fly me to Japan to take part in an in-person career fair, I made sure my Final Year Project presentation showed off my revamped product.” Read more: From Pune to Tokyo: How Karate and Anime Led to a Dream Career in Japan.
Most Important Tips on Your Final Year Project
- Choose a topic you sincerely love/enjoy/find meaningful. There’s a big chance that you’ll find a company interested in the same topic. You will also find it easier to work on!
- Give your all! Don’t neglect it. For many of our applicants, their final year in university became incredibly busy or would coincide with rigorous Japanese learning. The final product or research from your final year project is something companies will look at. Make sure it’s something you can be proud of!
- Find your target companies. Learn and research about the Japanese companies who may have similar projects to yours. In the same vein, finding parallels between your project and the company’s can help you understand your connection with a company you are already scheduled to interview for.
- Create a Japanese-translated glossary of technical terms relevant to your project. This will be your cheat sheet! Aside from practicing anticipated questions, your project-specific vocabulary will help you navigate around unexpected questions.
- Work as a team! Japanese companies will want to hear about how you share the credit of your final project. They are looking for team workers and not lone wolves.
- Practice talking about the project with other people in Japanese. Casual conversation is different than technical conversations. It’s best to practice it and get comfortable talking about the technical nature of your project before your interview day. Doubling down on these discussions during your mock interviews with FAST OFFER will also get you the feedback you need.
Anecdotes on Final Year Projects Affecting Our Successful Talents’ Journeys
Their Final Year Projects Inspired Their Career Aspirations in Japan
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…During my final year in university, I had the opportunity to work with Japanese materials to develop technology, and that really powered my drive to pass JLPT N4 in hopes of getting a job offer in Japan.
During my senior year, a Japanese company sponsored my graduation project. This let my team source industrial parts from Japan to construct our design. I got to use and witness how superior Japanese technology was from the ground up. Everything in Japanese technology—from the smallest nail to the large tractors—was well-designed and made to last long.
My experience with my final-year project was such a satisfying culmination of my hard work at the university. Not only was I proud of the final product, but we also got to interact with our Japanese company through it. I was able to interact with them with the little Japanese I knew. I was overjoyed by the small but meaningful interactions we had. My final-year project was a defining moment. It made me serious about wanting to work in Japan.
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I experienced the excellence of Japanese craftsmanship through their products. For my final year project, I worked on optimizing BLDC motors for use in electric bicycles. Through this project, I was exposed to the excellence and innovation of Japanese engineering, which convinced me even more that a career in Japan would be the perfect place to take my skills and knowledge to a higher level.
Leveraging their Final Year Projects for the Japanese Job Interviews
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During the mock interview sessions with them, I repeatedly practiced how I would present myself at the interview for my final year project. At first glance, my past project experience and the position at the company I was interviewing for seemed unrelated. However, through repeated sessions with them, I gradually began to understand how I could showcase the skill sets I had developed through my past projects in the interview.
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What I did for my Final Year Project – It was a pharmaceutical project that focused on treatment for alopecia and a pain-relieving gel. Of course, it wasn’t particularly interesting for an IT company, so I made sure to showcase my transferable skills so that I could plan long-term projects.
From Coding Languages in High School to Engineering in Japan
Final Year Projects Are an Essential Part of the Job Hunt for Fresh Grads
The most important improvement that made a difference was regarding my Final Year Project. When Japanese companies hire new graduates, they take your Final Year Project as a basis for “work experience.” This is where they see your skills and specialties in use, and where your working interest lay. During my first interview months ago, I had a hard time talking about my Final Year Project for two reasons:
- I was only just beginning my Final Year Project. I didn’t have the experiential knowledge to know everything about my project because I still had a long way to go.
- My Japanese was lacking. Explaining complicated concepts and using Japanese jargon proved too challenging at that time.
So, this time, when I interviewed again with the same company I did months ago, I answered their questions way better. My Japanese was way more fluent, and I’d gotten to know all the ins and outs of my project.”
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“Being able to explain what you have done during your final year project is crucial in the evaluation. There is a lot of technical jargon that you need to know how to explain in Japanese in detail. I practiced a lot with my mentor to ensure that I could explain it well before going to the interview.”
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When I explained my graduation research, the interviewer was very interested. I had previously participated in SMART INDIA HACKATHON (SOH) that inspired me to create a system that allows visually impaired people to take tests. The interviewer appreciated my ability to identify issues and the theme of my project. Although I had many other internships and project experiences, they were not asked about during the interview. The interviewers were very strict with the time, so they probably chose the most interesting parts of my resume to talk about.
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After this call, all I did was upload a few necessary materials to my profile. Soon, my mentor matched me with one company. Researching the company and reading through the job description provided, I was shocked at how much this company fit my dream. During the interview with the company, I was able to discuss my projects that I felt best resonated with them.
Emphasizing the company’s sustainability values, I told them about my paper-reuse project. In the project, we figured out how to remove printed ink from paper using a laser. Paper strength typically degrades in traditional recycling processes, but here, we can preserve paper strength, while making it reusable. My other project was helping farmers survey their land through an autonomous drone. The company was working on a similar project around the same time! I couldn’t have imagined a better, closer match! It felt like an impossible similarity!
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Combine multiple disciplines in your project to attract more companies.
Cast a wider net and attract more companies by engaging at least two disciplines in your project. For example, if your project incorporates the mechanical and robotics industries, you’ll attract the attention of companies from two industries instead of just one. You can match with more engineering opportunities in Japan this way! Also, this will expand the kind of experience you’ll have, and you might find a field you’re passionate about.
Find the work you love in your Final Year Project.
You’ll learn a lot from working on your project, but the most important lesson is about yourself. What kind of work do you enjoy doing and do best? This will help you decide the job you need to look for. I learned from my project how much I enjoy developing new products and working on new designs. The only way to find the perfect engineering opportunity in Japan is to first know what kind of engineering work you want to do.
Work passionately on polishing your final year project.
Your Final Year Project tells the story of who you are to the company. Japanese companies will gauge your skill set and how helpful you’ll be to them through your final year project.
Take your journey further! Learn How to Take Advantage of Japan’s New Graduate Recruitment as a Foreigner
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