Simultaneous recruiting of new graduates | Hacker News Reader

Simultaneous recruiting of new graduates

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39 pointsluu15 comments

My theory on the original of this practice comes from my grandpa-in-law. He talked about how after WW2 towns would pitch money together to buy tickets to send their young men to the big cities together.

His experience was they arrived at Ueno station, the traditional "entrance" to Tokyo, and businesses recruited in bulk. Which is to say "We'll hire 5". No interviews, and no skills. Considering we are talking about young men whose only skills are 1. Survived WW2, 2. Graduated High School, I can see business not seeing differentiators.

In Grandpa's case he survived the war by being sick. Thus he was a bit older on average than the cohort who survived by being too young. In turn he achieved CEO status of an off-shoot company of his company.

One can also see how the work-for-life system got such a strong start. Without merit based hiring the businesses truly were the source of anyone's career success. Any skills learned were taught on the job. Any raises or outward fame could only come with success of the company.

Other than the scale and universality within Japan it doesn't sound very different from how campus recruiting works in the US. If you accept that, at least for the vocationally-oriented programs like CS, engineering, and business, a university education is primarily a signal and not a source of inherent value, the signal is significantly weakened if you don't manage to capitalize on the interview and hiring season during your senior year.

The difference is that it is the only signal that matters. Good luck finding a job in a major company in Japan if you’re not a new graduate. It is literally impossible as they only hire straight out of University. It’s a huge ageism problem.

Reminds me of NYC's old Moving Day, when every lease in the city expired on May 1, 9:00am.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_Day_(New_York_City)

That is absolutely bonkers! Who'd think this was a good idea?!

Its bonkers now, having to give up one domicile with no guarantee the next one is going to be available at the same time. Endless work ensues - double moves (to storage then to the new place), overpaying rent (new lease starts 2 months before old one is up) and so on.

This essentially happens in Boston to this day (though the date is September 1st).

Because so many renters in Boston are college students, it drives the market. Also because all the Boston colleges know about the September 1st moving date, all of the Boston colleges start classes just after September 1st. (In other parts of the country, college classes may start before September 1st.)

The two reinforce each other.

Best quote was at the end. "However, human being are such creatures of habit and imitation, that what is necessity soon becomes fashion, and each one wishes to do what everyone else is doing. A lady in the neighbourhood closed all her binds and shutters, on May-day; being asked by her acquaintance whether she had been in the country, she answered, "I was ashamed not to be moving on the first of May; and so I shut up the house that the neighbours might not know it." One could not well imagine a fact more characteristic of the despotic sway of custom and public opinion, in the United States, and the nineteenth century.[29]"

Montreal still does this—-a huge proportion of leases end on July 1.

In medieval Italy (and probably most of southern Europe) sharecroppers whose "rental contract" expired were expected to move from one allotted housing/field to another on the 11th of November. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fare_San_Martino

In India, this is known as mass recruiting where IT recruiters like TCS and Infosys hire about to graduate students in bulk irrespective of their stream or experience.

This isn’t much different from how startups/FAANG have huge programs and incentives exclusive to new collage grads, is it?

I think one difference is that in the US many companies still consider you a "new college grad" up to 6 months to a year after graduation. So if you fail to get a new grad job before graduating, you may still be able to pick up a new grad job in the next recruiting season. For example, I failed to get a job as a new grad at Google while applying as a senior, but was told that I could re-apply for a new grad role the next fall. And many entry level jobs in the US are not even specifically targeted at "new grads", although being a recent grad certainly helps.

Very interesting, I wonder how this "tradition" came to be in the first place. I suppose if you need a large amount of people who you don't expect to bring any special qualification anyway, it's most efficient to just hire a big group of the highest quality average? Then you don't have to read applications.

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