Success Story: Finance Analyst, e-commerce company

Situation

This is a successful case study of a position at a North American e-commerce company that has been doing business in Japan for over 15 years. When a similar position opened in 2020, a candidate we introduced to the company made it to the final interview and was highly rated, but unfortunately another person was hired at the time. At the beginning of 2021, we were told that there was another opening in the same team, and the hiring manager initially requested that we contact the person who had the last interview in 2020 to see if they would like to be considered again.

Action

Having been in charge of searching last year, we were able to understand the real requirements that the client was looking for, which could not be read from JD alone. We knew that the priority which the human resources were looking for was to find candidates with strong analytical skills in finance rather than Japanese language skills. Therefore, we also introduced a foreign national candidate with a similar profile to the one who made it to the final interview last year, who had interned at a company in the past. Although the candidate's lack of Japanese language skills limited their ability to change jobs in Japan, they had excellent analytical skills and were a good match for the type of person the client was looking for.

Result

Within the same day of the first interview, we received a high evaluation feedback from the company, and the process from the final interview to the job offer proceeded very quickly. Although the candidate was 28 years old at the time and lacked three years of experience from the requirements set by the client, their high potentials were recognized, and they ended up getting an offer with a total of 12% salary increase plus stock benefits.

Consultant’s voice

This company is very data-driven in everything they do, so analytical skills in finance were much more important than language skills. And now that many companies are becoming more data-driven, data analysis skills are increasingly valued over language. Furthermore, as in this case, the fact that the hiring manager is a foreign national may ease the Japanese language skills.

Please do not give up on the job you want to try based only on the contents of JD, but feel free to consult with us who are deeply familiar with the company and the position. It is valuable to find a position that really interests you. If you find such a position, we encourage you to try to be open-minded.