“Let Us Dream”: Demonstrating Against Unified Job Hunting in Japan · Global Voices
Each spring, the job hunting season starts and Japanese students in their third year of university start preparing by suiting up, attending seminars and job fairs, and having bouts of soul searching. They apply to dozens of companies, each with multiple rounds of examinations and interviews, until they receive one or several job offers.
The process can take up a large chunk of the last two years of school; a mentally and physically draining time that eats into one’s self-confidence.
"Job Hunting Seminar for Sophomore Students" by Flickr user <PERSON> (CC BY-NC 2.0).
On Labor Day, students held demonstrations in Tokyo and Kyoto to rally against this system, expressing anger towards the irrational hoops and hurdles that impede on studying time. The demonstration also criticized the commercialization of job hunting, pointing fingers to several major online student/company matching services that play a big part in the ecosystem of the practice.
The organizers used blogs and Twitter (@syukatsu_tokyo and @S_demo_Kyoto) to call for support, and eventually round up more than a hundred demonstrators.
@syukatsu_tokyo: 【拡散願】とうとう後2日！就活ぶっこわせデモ、水曜日13時半アルタ前集合です！！行こうか行くまいか迷っているそこのあなた！！遠目に見てるだけでも構わない！ぜひ新宿アルタ前に！ #就活デモ
[Please RT] Two more days to go! We will be gathering for the demonstration to abolish university graduate job recruitment practices in front of the Shinjuku Alta building at 1:30 p.m. 925
on Wednesday! Still undecided? Just come to watch, then. Meet up in front of Shinjuku Alta!
This is one of their messages:
@hosyukakumei: 競争はあってもいいと思うんんだけど、共生を目指したいんです。同じ日本人通しで勝ち組とか負け組とかいうレッテルを貼りあうのはもういい加減やめませんか？少なくとも私はそういう不毛な争いに疲れました。 #就活デモ
Competition is fine, but we'd like to aim for peaceful coexistence. Couldn’t we just stop the cavalier labels of “winners” and “losers” among ourselves? I, at least, am tired of such unproductive conflicts.
The Tokyo organizers report that more than 1,000 people watched the live stream, while the archived footage garnered over 6,000 views.
The demonstration gathered attention in the online sphere. Many commented that the intent of the demonstration was unclear, although there were some that supported the act of having a demonstration.
@yatabe_: 就活ぶっこわせデモを傍観してきたけど（参加はしてない）主張がなくて何が言いたいのかわかんなかった。試みは面白いだけに非常に残念。「就活くたばれ」「○○ナビ潰れろ」「ゆとりにゆとりを」「夢を見させろ」って叫びながら歩いてたけど、わがまま言ってるようにしか聞こえなかった。 #就活デモ
I went to watch the demonstration against graduate job recruitment practices from the sidelines (I did not participate in it), but there was no emphasis on any particular point. 925