Which hiring channel does this role actually need?
Job boards fill about a third of Japan’s mid-career hires — and almost none of the ones that keep you awake. Answer five questions and find out which side of that line your role sits on.
Where to spend
Where not to
The threshold
When an agency is the right price
Private placement agencies fill 6.3% of Japan’s non-new-graduate hires. That sounds like a rounding error until you notice which 6.3%. A fee of 30–35% of theoretical annual salary (理論年収) is the correct price for a role no board will fill, and a terrible price for one that three would. These are the cases where it is the correct price.
- The role is bilingual and manager-level or above. This is the single clearest signal. The pool is small, employed and not reading job ads.
- The qualified population is under a few hundred people nationally — the usual result when language, function and industry all narrow at once.
- The search is confidential, because someone is still in the seat or the move is not yet public.
- You have run a paid posting for four weeks and it has produced no viable shortlist. Four weeks is the signal, not twelve.
- You have a scout platform licence but nobody with the hours to work it. An unstaffed licence is the most common wasted line item in a Japan recruiting budget.
And the inverse, just as firmly: for a single Japanese-language role in a metro, for any hire you are making six or more of, and for anything a working employee referral programme already reaches, an agency is an expensive way to buy what ¥400,000 and a decent job ad would have delivered.
The full analysis, with all ten platforms and what each costs →
Experience the Gift of Opportunity
Landed on “this is a search”?
That is the half of the market we work in every day — senior and bilingual leadership hiring across Japan. Tell us the seat you cannot fill and we will tell you what it will take.
Contact Us →