I know I am old when I start to call university students "kids."

The survey asked Japanese university students expected to graduate on March 2014 and currently actively on job search. They were asked companies they would like to work for, dream company. Top 10 answers were:

Among Humanity and Social Science majors:
1. JTB (travel agency)
2. ANA
3. H•I•S (travel agency)
4. Dentsu (advertising company)
5. The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ
6. Oriental Land (operating company of Tokyo Disney Resort)
7. JR East
8. JAL
9. Plan•Do•See (hotels, restaurants, banquets, and personnel service in related fields)
10. Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co.

Among Engineering and Science majors:
1. JR East
2. Kagome (Food & Beverage, known for tomato ketchup)
3. Asahi Kasei (Chemicals, fabrics, housing materials, electronics, and health care)
4. Shiseido (cosmetics)
5. Meiji Holdings (Food & Beverage, and healthcare products)
6. Ajinomoto (Food & Beverage)
7. Toyota
8. Mitsubishi Heavy Industry
9. Toshiba (東芝)
10. NTT Data (IT company)

For me it is interesting to see only one IT company listed. Reflection of today’s Japanese university students’ interested toward IT business, because I think maybe 5 years ago there could have been more IT companies on the list.

 

Doesn't sound like they were surveying the A-team there.

 

Not a single foreign company and only a few exporters. Amazingly inward-looking.

 

Source? Looks quite different from the Weekly Diamond rankings...
https://navi14.shukatsu.jp/14/conten.../ranking/2013/

 

The source you referenced is a year old, where survey was conducted from November 24, 2012 through January 20, 2013. The one I referenced is most current one for March 2014 graduates which survey was done by Mynavi Corporation.

 

Even five years ago, I remember having discussions about the poor image of IT jobs in Japan - with the outcome that firms were finding it hard to recruit and retain good IT professionals. There was even some joke about IT being the 21st century "3K" job. (Of course, there's not so much "danger" or "dirt" but long hours, low pay, and low morale).

 

Software engineering salaries here in Japan are still a joke. For a place that, in total per month, can be as expensive as SF and NYC, to pay only a third the salary that employees get in those respective regions is absurd.

Also, here's a fun ranking of companies whose employees are considered successful/excellent:
http://r25.yahoo.co.jp/fushigi/wxr_d...0-00028082-r25

 

Panasonic used to be named Matsushita in Japan (but even that has changed in 2008), Toshiba has nothing to do with that and is a different company.

 

 

That�s right, my bad!

 

Ah, here it is. http://saponet.mynavi.jp/enq_gakusei/ranking/index.html

 

Given that university attended practically determines hiring options subsequently I have doubts about the relevance of the survey. Survey Waseda grads and you'll get a list of government departments they are hoping to work in. Survey Todai students and you'll get a list of major Jpns 'name' corporations. "Dream jobs" doesn't really mean much to the average Jpns student IMO. They might have a dream job function, but few have a company in mind IME.

 

I thought the stereotype was the other way around.

 

Some data from 2012 (in Japanese only).

Todai : http://todai.kawai-juku.ac.jp/todai/.../graduate.html
Waseda : http://www.waseda.jp/career/event/2013/GB2014_date.pdf

 

Does it matter for our purposes here?