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Shūshoku katsudō, often shortened to shūkatsu, means looking and applying for work. Recruiting students before graduation is one important Japanese setting. Open applications, school recommendations and occupation-specific selection coexist.
Simultaneous graduate recruitment links leaving school with entering a company. JILPT describes the familiar pattern as graduation in March followed by employment in April, with selection conducted while students are still enrolled. School support, employer intakes and graduation dates are connected, although April is not the only possible starting month.
University careers guidance starts with interests, abilities and the work a student hopes to do, alongside research into employers and roles. Information sessions, university listings and conversations with graduates provide different leads. These help students decide where to apply; attending a session is only one part of the process.
An entry sheet, or ES, asks questions chosen by an employer. Kyoto University lists motivation, activities during student life, personal strengths and, for relevant research or technical roles, a research summary. Many are submitted online. The ES adds employer-specific questions to the basic record supplied by a résumé.
Employers may use written tests, interviews or group discussions. Kyoto University explains group discussion as an opportunity to observe proposing, listening, analysing and organizing ideas, rather than simply counting contributions. Interviews also let applicants learn about the role. Stages and their order vary among employers.
Kyoto University distinguishes open applications, common for administrative roles, from school or supervisor recommendations used for some technical and research positions. Recommendation places may require coordination within a department. A recommendation still involves employer selection. Routes differ with occupation, qualification and employer.
Kyoto University distinguishes two situations. An open applicant finds employers and enters selection independently; some administrative roles request a recommendation letter only at the final stage, as a condition for a preliminary offer. School- or supervisor-recommended research and technical roles may instead require discussion with a laboratory or departmental careers teacher before application, with places coordinated for each company. Some employers accept only that route.
Check whether the recommendation establishes the application route or enters near the end of selection. Recommended candidates may still submit an ES and attend interviews. Coordinating access, supplying a letter and making the hiring decision are separate steps.
The government’s 26 December 2025 position on fiscal-2027 graduates normally concerns students graduating in March 2028. It places recruitment publicity from 1 March 2027, selection from 1 June and formal offers from 1 October. The related request to economic organizations was issued on 24 March 2026. These requested dates do not legally bind employers or establish a permanent calendar.
A three-ministry revision in 2022 introduced four categories of career-development support, applying to participation from fiscal 2023. Open-company events and career education need not include actual work experience. Types 3 and 4 use the internship designation and require work experience.
Type 3 has further conditions: actual work must occupy more than half the programme’s days, with employee supervision and feedback. General-ability programmes last at least five days, and specialist-application programmes at least two weeks, alongside conditions on long vacations from the academic year before graduation or completion onward, and disclosure of information use. Once the standards are met, acquired student information may be used after the relevant publicity or selection starting point. Students must still make a separate application for recruitment selection.
The same policy acknowledges earlier recruitment and allows a selection exception for qualifying specialist internships. Actual schedules differ by industry, employer and discipline. Nainaitei is a common term for a preliminary indication before a formal naitei; the policy distinguishes these from formal offers beginning in October.
For the fiscal 2027 cohort described above, normally graduating in March 2028, government guidance limits the exception to Type 3 specialist-application internships. The internship must take place from the spring vacation immediately before the graduation year or later, followed by recruitment selection, to permit selection outside the June starting point. The specialist programme must last at least two weeks and meet its category’s standards.
A one-day information event, educational participation, use of internship information and a successful hiring decision are distinct stages. Read the cohort, programme type and subsequent-selection conditions together.
The policy records clashes between interviews, classes and research. It also calls for action against owahara, including pressure to end other applications in exchange for an offer. Recruitment timing affects time for study and the ability to continue choosing among employers.
The 2025 position reviews a change in coordination: Keidanren had drawn up recruitment-selection guidelines, while from 2018 the government convened annual interministerial meetings and made requests to economic organizations. Timing reflects continuing negotiation among employers, universities and government.
Labour-policy research traces modern graduate recruitment to expanding large firms and higher education from late Meiji into the 1920s. Employers approached schools, while universities developed placement offices, including Waseda in 1921 and Meiji in 1924. A recruitment-timing agreement appeared in 1928: coordination disputes have a long history.
Controls introduced in 1938 brought graduate employment into wartime labour allocation. After the war, institutional changes in 1949 established a legal basis for free school placement. School–employer links continued, while wartime state allocation, postwar placement and personal applications operated through different arrangements.
Until the 1960s, large firms often requested recommendations only from designated universities, sometimes excluding applicants from other schools. JILPT’s account identifies two pressures behind the system’s decline in the 1970s: students visited companies and secured offers before university recommendations, while criticism grew over its preference for prestigious schools. Open applications expanded, with recommendations continuing in some technical fields.
Recruitment information became a publishing business. Recruit launched the graduate job-information magazine Kigyō e no Shōtai in 1962 and introduced online employment-information services including RB on the NET in 1996. Print, websites and university offices supplied different routes for applicants to learn about employers.
Graduates around 1993–2004 faced severe hiring conditions after the bubble economy collapsed and became known as the employment ice-age generation. The labour ministry notes that difficulties at first entry continued to affect some later careers. Graduate recruitment persisted alongside attempts at year-round hiring and eligibility for applicants within three years of graduation.
Answers to an employer’s questions about motivation, experience, abilities or research.
No. Employer selection still applies.
Fiscal-2027 graduates, normally graduating in March 2028.
1 March 2027.
No. A timing agreement already existed in 1928.
Yes. Educational participation and a recruitment application are separate.
A qualifying specialist-application internship of at least two weeks at the specified spring-vacation timing or later, followed by recruitment selection.
The letter comes near the end of open selection; the school route coordinates access and places before application.