ヴェディオールキャリア 大谷光彦社長 インタビュー
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「素敵な本と人に出会いなさい。」 学校の先生や両親に言われたことがある人も多いのではないでしょうか。ヴェディオールキャリア (オランダの総合人材ビジネス企業のヴェディオール社とスタッフサービスグループにより誕生した新しい人材紹介会社）の大谷社長が取材中何度も口にしたキャリア形成に必要な力とは？
'PERSONAL MAGNETISM' IS EVERYTHING
New job placement firm looks for professionals, executives
By SHINICHI TERADA
Staff writer
What does your career mean to you?
Vedior Career Inc., a new recruitment company of permanent placement in Tokyo jointly set up by an Amsterdam-based major recruitment company and a Tokyo-based staffing agency, defines it as one's "entire life."
"It means how you are needed by an organization and people," said Mitsuhiko Otani, CEO and president of Vedior Career. "In order for an organization and people to need you, you may want to focus on improving your "personal magnetism (or personal power, influence and aura)."
Otani, 53, said that the personal magnetism is what job seekers, especially contemporary young Japanese, need to improve on, because technical skills, such as fluency in English, logical thinking and marketing knowledge, can be acquired later. But he said that many tend to rush into acquiring these skills overnight to compete in the global business environment.
The new permanent placement company's president said that reading books on history might help workers enrich their personal magnetism. "Historical books are full of good examples of great people, role models. They may give you insight into their ways of thinking, which could then be applied to a business strategy. History is not the past but the future," said Otani, a big fan of Ryotaro Shiba, a late popular historical novelist.
Vedior Career, a joint venture between Vedior Group, the world's third largest recruitment company in terms of revenue, and Staff Services Group, a major staffing company in Japan, launched its business in Tokyo in June last year.
The permanent placement company is responding to Japan's growing labor market against a backdrop of increasing deregulation, ongoing successful corporate restructuring and a declining birthrate with a rapidly graying population.
What make Vedior Career unique are its job openings, which include those for specialists and executive-level personnel. In fact, Vedior Group is a pioneer in the placement of specialists and executives. And, Otani said he hopes to see Vedior Career a pioneer in these fields in Japan, where the government relaxed a regulation on the dispatching of nurses in 2004 and is expected to ease more regulations in various job fields in the foreseeable future.
Deregulation comes as the world's second largest economy is facing a problem in how to secure a workforce amid a declining birthrate and an aging population.
The total Japanese population declined to an estimated 127.76 million in 2005, down 20,000 from 127.78 million from a year earlier, according to data recently released by the government. The data also said that it was the first year-on-year drop since the government had started to measure in 1920.
The shortage of labor may be even more imminent.
Baby boomers in Japan -- an estimated 6.8 million born between 1947 and 1949 -- will begin retiring in 2007. One solution is to rehire the retired, and leading Japanese companies, including Nomura Securities Co. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., have introduced such systems. Recruitment companies are now expecting older generations to register as temporary workers, armed with the expertise they built up over the decades.
Otani said that women are another important source of workers who can boost the Japanese economy. He said that women's attitudes toward having careers have become more open and positive, citing that some women even supplement their husbands' declining salaries to make ends meet. Also, the demand for women is increasing in some specific sectors, he said.
"A woman graduates from college and works full time until she gets married: This may be the old-fashioned way to go," he said.
"Japanese companies should keep women and men on parental leave informed on the status of the company in order to keep them connected," he continued.
Another solution, experts claim, is to hire non-Japanese.
The company's "DOVA," or online worldwide job search database, may be of help. Job seekers here can get access to the DOVA system and search job openings worldwide. And job seekers overseas can look for job openings here in Japan. The DOVA system is expected to help accelerate the inflow of people across the nation's borders.
Otani, who lived overseas for more than 10 years, said that young Japanese need to know Japanese history, as well as their own backgrounds, if they want to work on the front lines of the international stage in the future.
"What is the value of 'Ma- kura No Soshi' (The Pillow Book)," he asks. It is a collection of essays about random observations of love and nature, said to have been written by a court lady, named Seisho Nagon, in 1002. Otani emphasized that Japanese classic works should be reintroduced to Japanese who study or work at home and overseas at the crossroads of globalization so that they are able to differentiate themselves from others.
Dot.com businesses are back on top, energized by Internet broadband services. Otani said that Internet-related sectors, such as high-tech and dot.com firms, are emerging and information technology engineers and salespeople are in high demand. This puts Vedior Career at an advantage as it offers career-counseling, skills advice and seminars and training in these fields.
He said that IT engineers should work harder to build their management skills so that they will be able to manage engineers, provide IT-related solutions and plan and coordinate. For sales positions, he said, salespeople should acquire marketing skills and, above all, develop charisma.
Working styles vary from person to person and depend on their stage of life. That's why each job seeker needs to clarify what he or she wants in life. "Ask yourself what you value most, reflect on how your life has gone so far, and determine what has bee lacking to achieve this," Otani advised.
Vedior Career Inc. Web site: www.vedior-career.co.jp
