rts123

I'm looking for input from those who live & work in Japan, especially those involved in hiring people.

The company I work for is considering hiring a Japanese citizen to work for us in Japan. He would be based in the office of our partner company in Japan and would spend much of his time traveling around Japan, working solo on technical projects.

I recently spent a couple of weeks with this person as part of a training & evaluation effort. While casually talking about what to do with our weekend off he asked "Do you ever drink so much that the next day you forget what happened?". I replied in the negative and he went on to say that it's happened to him "many times", occasionally resulting in minor injuries, a lost wristwatch, etc. I thought that was not the best thing to tell a prospective employer.

Shortly after I left Japan, the CEOs of my company and our partner company met briefly with this candidate. I had relayed the drinking comments to my CEO, so he asked this person what he did with his free time. "Drinking" was the reply, directly to the CEOs of both companies he would be working for.

From my perspective drinking at that level raises a red flag and has short and long term effects that could impact his work, not to mention his health. The work he'd be doing is technical and semi-technical in nature in an environment that can be hazardous at times. Even a fairly small mistake could result in an expensive return trip to fix a problem caused by lack of attention/focus during the initial work.

We're at the point of deciding if we should invest more time & money in training this person and having them become a full-time employee. If we were hiring in the US and knew that a candidate had alcoholic tendencies, that would affect our decision.

For those with experience working & hiring in Japan: Are we taking this too seriously? Or do we have a legitimate concern? I understand that getting drunk - not just drinking - may be more embedded in Japanese culture, especially business culture, than it is in the US, but that doesn't do anything to reduce the potential liability we feel we may face if we hire this person.

Any feedback would be welcomed.

Pickles

A drunkard is a drunkard no matter what their skin color. And as for this "drinking culture", it is, in my opinion, vastly overrated. Most Japanese people who participate in it wouldn't do it if it wasn't for peer pressure.

Anybody who's the willing instigator of such things on a regular basis (i.e. more than a couple times a week) is usually unproductive, disruptive to the work environment, not a likable or liked person, and is the kind of clown Japanese company employees put up because of the hierarchy and the peer pressure. If it were up to most Japanese sarariman, they'd rather be doing anything else than drinking out with annoying, unpleasant drunkard colleagues.

Now, if drinking is "part of the job" (i.e. some traveling sales jobs) then this may be overlooked up to a point, but it sounds like this guy is not this kind of hire, so I'd be more than wary of hiring him, no matter what his other qualities may be. The fact that he would admit that all he does is drink in his spare time at the very least demonstrates a spectacular lack of common sense during the interview process.

joejones

I disagree with Pickles--standards are simply different in Japan. Odds are that this guy is just trying to exercise his warped concept of maleness. Watch him carefully during his probationary period, and if nothing weird happens then don't worry too much about it.

mjm

Vaild points y Sir Pickles on the drinking thing being something most feel they must do as opposed to want to do of their own accord.

I would add however that the great majority of salarymen I have come i contact with in the last 20 years in corporate Tokyo are lousy drinkers, have exceedingly bad taste in booze and drink it at a pace and with a raucousness akin to what one would find in a college bar.

The biggest concern for me is the total lack of a requirement to be responsible for what one does or says the night before. You can literally be belligerent to your boss, cause damage to a shop and be poured into a taxi covered in vomit and be forgiven the next day as if nothing happened. Does not go very far towards teaching better behavior.

All of that said I believe Joe may have hit the nail on the head vis a vis this fellow's comments. I have heard that type of posturing many a time and generally the guys are still fairly well represented by the description in my first paragraph above.

Don't sweat it, keep an eye on the guy and realize that peer pressure is much more effective here in inducing work ethics and long hours than drinking to excess.

valve bouncer

What language were you speaking?

joejones

This is a good point -- the usual way I have heard it succinctly expressed is "work hard, play hard," though I would prefer to think of it as "work stiff, play loose."

Anyway, health concerns aside, it isn't a huge problem when everyone has the same understanding of the rules (typical Japanese social situations), but it can be disastrous if outsiders unfamiliar with the rules (foreign clients or management) are involved.

RichardInSF

Over the years, I directly or indirectly supervised the hire of perhaps a few dozen Japanese. I never heard of any candidate making a big deal about drinking during the job interview process. I don't think it's a cultural difference to that extent; Japanese certainly know they have to be on their best behavior during interviews and probationary periods.

I'd be more with Pickles, I would say your concerns are legit, especially for techies.

808 Flyer

Personally, I think these are not suprising comments, especially if the individual did not have a good deal of experience dealing with non-Japanese. The first comment is typical of many Japanese. I am not saying they like drinking to excess, but many Japanese sarariman can't hold their liquor well and/or drink too fast and too strong of an alcohol.

The second comment sounds more like the kind of comment typically made in Japan in the spirit of I do nothing but work, all I have time to do is drink.

Anyway, I think it important that you let the individual know your expectations on the job, and that they avoid making such comments to non-Japanese clients. Beyond that keep an eye on them.

Pickles

This crossed my mind too, you know, kind of a "Lost in Translation" moment where the Japanese candidate heard that Westerners are candid, honest, and fortright, and thus came out and said exactly what he thought he should have said. Guy didn't quite realize that a job interview is not the place to show off how much you drink.

ChrisLi

Not directly relivent, but I have a Japanese colleague now works in Hong Kong who used to work in Osaka. She said she used to go out and drink every single night, be it business or social with other colleagues, and she used to be able to drink a lot.

Of course to "promote" drinking as a "hobby" will be a concern for me, but hopefully its simply lost in translation. My other colleague goes to those clubs (? Yen all you can for 30 minutes where there's a girl accompany you, where you buy girls their drink) when they are under pressure that just want to talk with random girl out there.

jib71

Peter Drucker recommended hiring people for their strengths and not settling for the committee-friendly, mediocre candidate that doesn't exhibit weaknesses:
http://www.nivi.com/blog/article/hir...eir-weaknesses

In theory, since you know this guy's weakness, you can be on the look out for it and take corrective action (or preventive action) to ensure that it doesn't impact the organization... at least that's the theory.