By David Asikin, on February 26th, 2011
The Data
Salary Table Last Updated: Feb 15, 2011
I’ve compiled a list of starting salary offered by companies participating in Boston Career Forum. This data is gathered through internet, glassdoor.com, personal experience, friends, word of mouth and the pamphlets distributed during the career fair. The list comprises of mostly financial firms since I (and people who I know and participated in the career fair) was mainly looking for a job in finance. The data might not be 100% accurate as starting salary keeps increasing every year or two. However, the data best reflect the offer given in BCF 2009 and 2010.
Continue reading Salary Data
By David Asikin, on February 26th, 2011
Japanese Companies vs. Foreign Companies
Foreign firms typically offer better salary package than Japanese firms. At this time of writing (Feb 15, 2011), a typical Japanese firm would pay around 220,000-250,000 JPY/month for a bachelor graduate. With an increase of around 20,000 JPY if you possess a Master’s degree. In total, you are looking around 3.0 million-4.0 million JPY/year, all in (including bonus, before tax). Some companies might offer slightly higher base, but no bonus for a couple of years, which slightly exceeds this figure (< 5.0 million JPY/year). However, the above-mentioned figure best represent the salary range for Japanese companies.
On the other hand, foreign companies typically pay a higher base, with a wide range of salary depending on the industry. Consulting companies offer starting salary with a range of 5.5 million-6.5 million JPY/year, with generally no bonus on the first couple of years. Of all foreign companies, finance jobs usually pay the highest: 6.5 million-7.0 million JPY/year for back office jobs and 7.5 million-8.0 million JPY/year for front office jobs (bonus not yet included). Including the bonus (which is heavily dependent on performance), you are looking at 9.0 million-12.0 million JPY/year.
Continue reading Pay Structure in Japanese Companies vs. Foreign Companies
By David Asikin, on February 2nd, 2011
Consulting Companies: Online Japanese and English Language Test + Math Test + Psycho Test
Nearly all consulting companies in Boston Career Forum require their candidates to take the online test. Their online test is different from that administered by financial companies in that Japanese language test and psycho test are often included. Generally, each company uses different test provider which has its own test format/style, thus, making it hard to prepare for it.
There are a lot of test providers for this type of test. To name a few: 玉手箱 (Read: Tamatebako), SPI2, TG-Web, Web-CAB, TAL, ESP, Web-IMR, CASEC, etc. I believe there are still some other variants out there. These tests, generally known as ‘SPI tests’, are the standard aptitude tests every job applicant has to take in Japan. To know which company provides which test and get good practice material, you have to do some googling in Japanese. I personally know that Deloitte Consulting uses TG-Web for Boston Career Forum because I took it (and passed! yay!  ).
To ace these tests, you need a strong command of Japanese (advanced business level or above). This is reasonable due to the nature of a consulting job which is a client-facing job and uses Japanese for business daily. The Japanese test often includes multiple choices of words to fill in the blanks in a sentence. Another format of the test is to find the analogy / synonym / antonym of a given Kanji.
Continue reading Boston Career Forum Online Web Test: Consulting Companies
By David Asikin, on January 24th, 2011
Financial Companies: SHL Online Test
Some financial companies in Boston Career Forum require their candidates to take online tests before the event. The online tests for financial companies generally comprise of verbal reasoning and numerical tests. They are usually provided by SHL (i.e. Barclays Capital and UBS). Before the actual test you are given a couple of practice questions. If you like to prepare yourself better, you can go to the official SHL practice test page and get a free full-length practice test on verbal and numerical. They even give you a score in the end of the test so you know how good you perform. The free practice tests offered on SHL site resemble the actual test. If you perform poorly on the practice tests, there is no way you can do good on the actual one. You should find and do more practice tests.
Numerical Test
Personally, I found the numerical test very easy. Most of the questions are middle-school math questions which involve basic math operation and reading bar/pie charts. The test is just to measure how accurate you can do simple math calculations under short period of time i.e. 25 questions in 18 minutes. Through some googling, I read that different companies have different evaluation methods. Some rank their candidates simply by how accurate they are on the test (the correct ratio), while some others also consider how fast they can finish the test.
Continue reading Boston Career Forum Online Web Test: Investment Banks
By David Asikin, on January 18th, 2011
Transportation
There are 3 ways to go to Boston Convention Center (BCEC): by taxi, train, or bus. BCF website (here) explains in detail about getting there using each. Here I’d like to share my experience and some caveats regarding going to the site.
Taxi
Boston Career Forum opens from 9:00 AM. Especially during the career fair, taxis around this hour will be very hard to catch. If you go by taxi, I’d suggest you make a reservation from the day before or very early in the morning (6 AM-ish). During my first visit to BCF, I had to wait for at least an hour at my hotel just to get a taxi and eventually convinced other groups to let me carpool with them because I hadn’t made any reservation.
Continue reading Transportation: Taxi or Train?
By David Asikin, on December 17th, 2010
English-Japanese Bilinguals Career Fair
Boston Career Forum (BCF) is an annual career fair held around November for English-Japanese bilinguals organized by Disco, a Japanese HR company. Japanese companies and foreign companies send their representatives all the way from Japan to specifically recruit new graduates with or without previous professional experience. The positions offered are mostly in Japan. The career fair lasts 3 days and is attended by approximately 8000 FT job/internship seekers every year. The majority of the participants (80-90%) is Japanese. Participating companies come from a wide variety of industry, i.e. financial, technology/engineering, consulting, pharmacy, game and toys, trading, etc. Check out who participates in the career fair by visiting the official BCF website, here.
Job Opportunities in Finance, Consulting, and IT/Engineering
BCF is the right place for you if you are looking for opportunity in finance in Japan. A lot of world class investment banks participate in the career fair every year, such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBS, JPM, Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and a lot more. For consulting, Deloitte Consulting, Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey and Company are frequenters of the career fair. Japanese securities firm, i.e. Nomura Securities, Daiwa Securities, and banks, i.e. Mizuho, Mitsubishi UFJ are also there.
Continue reading What is Boston Career Forum?
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