March 27, 2006 - The Japan Times

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2. March 27, 2006 - The Japan Times

“Be a bigger cog in a smaller wheel“

Author: By SHINICHI TERADA

Richard Bysouth has some surprising career advice for Japanese businesspeople pining for the traditional panacea of employment with a major corporation: "Try choosing smaller companies." He says it can be far more rewarding to be "a big cog in a smaller company." That’s not all.

The president of CareerCross, a burgeoning bilingual online recruitment firm, says opportunities abound for bilingual Japanese and non Japanese job seekers alike due to a surge in the number of overseas companies drawn to Japan.

"The number of foreign affiliated companies in Japan has risen from about 2,700 to 4,400 over the past 10 years," says Bysouth, 40. "The number of job openings at foreign affiliated companies now surpass that of job candidates."

Bilingual specialists with international experience are in high demand.

Many jobs require candidates who understand traditional Japanese and the global market. This is especially true of the IT (information technology) sector, which has been re-energized by the growth of broadband.

There is a dearth of English-speaking Japanese engineers adept in programming, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relations management (CRM) and search engine marketing (SEM), according to Bysouth.

So much, in fact, "the head offices of overseas firms must send such professionals with translators to their Japan offices," he says.

Despite local convention, Bysouth doesn’t frown on doing a little job-hopping to find one’s niche. It worked for him. His resume ranges from farmer, nurse and salesperson after quitting high school and traveling around Europe, to CEO for a mojor recruiter in Japan.

"I’m a risk-taker," he says. "I get bored easily and like to keep moving forward."

In doing so, he amassed an array of experience, much of which went into building CareerCross.

Bysouth first came to Japan in 1990 with a one-way ticket and just $855. He left his native England to visit his future Japanese wife who he met in London.

It wasn’t long before he had opened an English-language school. The two married and later returned to London, but Japan hadn’t heard the last of the entrepreneur.

In London, he took a job with Highest International Standards(H.I.S.), Japan’s famed discount travel agency. By 1996, Bysouth had returned to Japan with his family to work at one of the company’s local offices.

He landed his first job as a recruiter in 1998. A year later, he was CEO for the Japanese operations of the British headhunting firm Robert Walters. At that time, the Internet industry was just starting to boom and Bysouth kept moving forward.

As a recruiter, his primary task was scouting qualified bilingual staff for client companies. He used newspapers and various job Web sites, painfully aware that none of the online services at the time met the growing need to match English- and Japanese-speaking bilingual job seekers with companies. He decided to do something about it.

In September 2000, he launched CareerCross (www.careercross.com), an online recruitment service that targets bilingual job seekers. The Web site now posts more that 4,000 jobs from some 150 companies and draws several hundred thousand visitors monthly.

After all his experiences and travels, Bysouth, a father of three, seems determined to remain settled in Japan. But he advocates travel abroad for bilingual Japanese interested in tapping what foreign affiliated companies in Japan have to offer.

He says it can help them attune to Western concepts, such as thinking outside the box - an asset these companies look for in applicants.

"Such Western thinking includes an ability to take responsibility for moving things forward. It helps you make better judgments based on a wide range of knowledge, " Bysouth explains.

"In a foreign country, renting an apartment, buying things at a supermarket and opening a bank account all help you understand a foreign culture. This gives you a basic idea of the business identity(of companies based in that country) and helps you understand how they get their business done."

It remains to be seen whether his current role will end his long journey of self discovery. But Bysouth is clear about his goals: continue establishing the bilingual recruitment business while contributing to society with the right job.