Career Tips

Your career is a journey with many opportunities to explore. As a trusted partner, we guide thousands of professionals and employers through every step of their way. From industry specific insights, interview preparation, to team management and in-demand jobs – we’ve got you covered.

Earth Day Special: Combatting Plastic Pollution and Skills Gap

Explore strategies to tackle plastic pollution and bridge the skills gap in sustainability. Join Hays Japan in celebrating Earth Day by fostering talent and driving environmental change... Read More

Contracting VS Permanent Roles: FAQs

Is contracting a stable career choice? Does contract job earn more than permanent roles? Get the answers to your contracting questions in Japan here. Read More

7 trends employees and employers in Japan should know in 2024

Learn what’s in store for businesses and candidates as we navigate hiring patterns, flexible working, generative AI and other 2024 trends in Japan... Read More

6 reasons why you should be job hunting right now

Explore five compelling reasons why embarking on a job hunt could be the strategic move your career needs... Read More

AI In The Workplace: Friend Or Foe?

Instead of feeling threatened by AI, I think we should see it as our new best friend at work. Specialist skills will always be in demand, while generative AI can take away the boring, time-consuming parts of our jobs... Read More

Work In One Of These Jobs? ChatGPT Can Help!

It’s been a lot of fun watching ChatGPT answer our questions and write full bodies of text in a matter of seconds. So far at work I’ve seen the AI chatbot produce code for programmers and generate ideas for headlines, while people out there are enjoying themselves by using it to pen song lyrics and short stories... Read More

How to boost productivity at work and make generative AI work for you

Embracing generative AI could enable you to use it to your advantage and be more productive in your role. In this blog, I’ll be explaining how you can get the most out of tools like ChatGPT and outlining the skills to develop, allowing you to stay ahead of the curve... Read More

4 Scientifically Proven Ways To Re-energize Your Working Week

What are the scientifically proven ways to feel more energised and more connected with team mates? And can we use this science to be more creative in our jobs? Here’s 4 ways you can give yourself more zip at work... Read More

10 Daily Habits To Bring Your Career Success

The most successful people tend to follow some very similar daily habits and throughout their working career. Why not try some of these simple adjustments to your working day, and you’ll be on your way to career success... Read More

Looking For A New Job In 2023? Here Are The Top Industries Hiring

A new year often brings about thoughts of change and progression. Many of you will have made resolutions at the start of 2023, some of which will be to find a new job or progress your career... Read More

10 Tips For Finding Your First “Green” Job

Here’s the good news. For those interested, organisations are looking for recruits to focus on sustainability and create positive change, but there aren’t enough candidates to currently fill those roles. As a result, there are opportunities for people to enter the sector... Read More

10 Tips Towards Becoming A Better Communicator

There are many different facets of communication. I’ve identified three primary branches of personal communication, these are: verbal communication, non-verbal communication (body language) and communication via a third party (technology)... Read More

You've Handed In Your Notice. Now What?

What a weight off of your shoulders. After months of searching, applying and interviewing, you have finally been offered an amazing opportunity. The contract is signed and sealed with your new employer... Read More

Do You Know When And How To Say No?

If you are good at your job and have reached a certain point in your career, you will soon get noticed and naturally new projects will fall on your desk... Read More

Careers Advice Podcast: Finding Your Career Path In Sustainability

As organisations place greater importance on sustainability and the practises that come with it, there are more and more opportunities for candidates to carve out a career in this field. Whether you’re an experienced specialist or even someone looking to transition into the sector, companies are on the lookout for passionate people... Read More

How To Improve Your Work-Life Balance

Striking a balance between work and personal life isn’t easy, but it is extremely important to most of us. In fact, a strong reason why many employees stay with their employer is for work-life balance... Read More

How To Discover Your Hidden Skills

Have you ever been deterred from applying for a job you thought you’d be great at, just because you felt your skills and experience didn’t 100 percent match up with the job description... Read More

How To Face Your Fears And Negotiate That Pay Rise

Negotiation is probably the most important skill you can master to be successful both at work and in your personal life, but it can be stressful and difficult at the best of times... Read More

How To Develop A Winning Job Search Strategy

Have you recently found yourself so keen to find a new job, yet also so busy with your current one, that your job search strategy involves frantically pinging off your CV whenever you can find a spare minute... Read More

How To Minimise Risk When Changing Careers

In my opinion there is no single advice or general theory about making risky or bold moves in one’s career, simply because the luck factor (i.e. all factors outside of our control) always plays an important role which you mostly cannot influence. What you can do however is minimize the impact of all other factors. Let me give you some tips... Read More

Nine Ways To Upskill Yourself Outside Of The Office

The world of work is ever changing, requiring candidates to not only keep their skills updated, but also learn new ones. Although many employers offer both on-the-job training and the chance to take more formal qualifications, it’s still up to you to keep your skills sharp and abreast of developments in your field... Read More

Why Creativity Isn't Just Important For ‘Creative’ Jobs

There are plenty of common traits shared by people from every walk of life, working at all levels, in each part of the world – for example, all of us eat, breathe, sleep and have imagination... Read More

4 Simple Steps To Prepare For Future Jobs

For many of us, it can feel impossible to truly safeguard our employability, especially when we can’t be sure of how our existing roles will change, which jobs will become obsolete and which new jobs will be created... Read More

Why You Need to Stop Being So Busy, Now

What’s your default response when someone asks you how you are? I’m willing to bet that it’s something along the lines of “I’m fine thanks, just really busy”. It just rolls off the tongue doesn’t it? Almost like a stock response that we automatically say without even thinking about it. Being busy is a badge of honour, we wear it with pride.... Read More

Four if the Most Important Things You Shold Look For in Your New Boss

When looking for a new job, it’s always helpful to have a set of certain criteria in your mind in terms of what you’re looking for in your next opportunity; this helps to narrow your search and helps ensure your transition is ultimately is met with success... Read More

How Has the Online Retail Landscape Been Reshaped by COVID-19 and What Tech Skills are Seeing the Highest Demand?

Whilst consumer preferences for online channels were unquestionably present prior to the COVID-19 crisis, the unexpected global events of the pandemic accelerated this trend on an unprecedented scale... Read More

Five Ways to Built Your Career Resilience

Psychological resilience is the capacity to deal with tough challenges and recover well from setbacks. Resilience is extremely important, especially when applied to career development and transitions... Read More

How to Stop Feeling So Nervous about Starting Your New Job

Are you about to start a new job? If so, by now, I’m sure at least some of that initial excitement of being offered the job has worn off and is starting to be replaced by feelings of nervousness or anxiety... Read More

Three Developer Career Paths and How to Hack Them

Be honest. Have you ever really thought about where you want to be in five years’ time? Are you worried your development career might be going down a road which you know probably isn’t right for you? If so, it’s important to take control now... Read More

How to Ensure Your Success in a Newly Created Role

The world of work and the businesses operating within it are changing faster than ever before. This means new departments are forming and thus new roles within those departments are being created all the time... Read More

6 Time-Saving Hacks to Help You to Manage Your Personal Brand Online

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has been famously quoted as saying that “your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room”. Your personal brand is essentially the perception that others have of you... Read more

Why Do You Want to Work for Us?

Ultimately, what all of us human beings are looking for is a reason to get up in the morning, a reason to contribute. And a big part of that sense of purpose is found in the work we do... Read more

Desperately Seeking My Work Mojo

I’ve spoken to lots of people recently who are putting a brave and happy face on things, but underneath, they’re struggling, they’re feeling despondent and finding it hard to motivate themselves at work. They feel as if they’ve lost their work mojo... Read more

Three Powerful Reasons Why Reflection is Essential for Personal and Professional Effectiveness

In the current chaos and uncertainty combined with the pace of change and fragility of our lives, making time for reflection becomes a necessity for sanity and effectiveness, rather than a simple luxury... Read more

Should You Take the Job Just Because it Pays More Money?

Whether you were actively looking for a new position or not, you have found yourself in a situation where you have been offered a new role. What’s more, the role pays far more than your current one for doing pretty much the same thing, so on the face of it, the choice seems obvious – go where the money is... Read more

Worried About Handing in your Resignation? Don't Be

Congratulations, if you are reading this blog, you have been offered a new and promising role elsewhere... So why does it taste so bittersweet? Read more

Why it is Always a Good Idea to Take a Break Before Starting a New Job

So, you’ve just been offered your dream job, and have successfully negotiated all the essentials including your salary, benefits and job title, but have you put as much thought and effort into negotiating your start date.. Read more

Should I Apply to a Job if I Don't Meet All the Requirements?

If you see an attractive job advertisement and there are not just one, but several key requirements that you don’t meet – then it’s probably best to not apply.But if there are only a few ‘desirable’ (as opposed to ‘essential’), you should still apply... Read more

Are you Suffering from a Career Burnout?

Career burnout is an all too common affliction which occurs when you feel incapable of continuing with your current occupation – and it’s something I have first-hand experience of... Read more

Why your Customers are More Important to Your Organisation than Ever?

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted our personal and professional lives to such an extent that many of our daily routines were transformed overnight (or have been transformed over the past 12 months). Many of our habits, our routines and our rituals have changed for good... Read more

Why Coding is the New 'Language' of the World

Beyond the world of work, code is being used to change lives all over the world. IBM hosted a 2019 challenge called ‘Call for Code’ which invited developers to create technical solutions to natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes and wildfires – using coding in an open source environment to solve complex real-world problems. Coding isn’t just the future of work, it’s the future of the world we live in... Read more

What to do if Covid-19 has Left you Feeling 'Stuck' in Your Job

Perhaps you had been working hard towards a promotion before the crisis hit, only for those plans to be put on hold, leaving you feeling deflated. Or maybe, you’re concerned your learning and development is stalling as you deal with the ‘here and now’ implications the pandemic has for your role and the wider organisation. Or you simply feel stuck in a job... Read more

5 Ways to Improve your Problem Solving Skills

In my career, I have been very privileged to be in a role in which there is always an abundance of complex situations and problems to be solved, but also positive people looking to solve these problems together. Many would see this as a curse, but in fact, plenty of research suggests that problems are actually food for the human brain... Read more

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” - Aristotle

Many of us live our lives on autopilot and fail to take the time to really understand ourselves; to reflect on who we are and what we want. It’s sad to say, but often others may well have a more accurate picture of us than we do of ourselves...Read more

Six Soft Skills you will Need in the Next Era of Work

The COVID-19 crisis has brought about overnight change and disruption to the world of work. Of course, some of these changes were bubbling away in the background in the pre-crisis world, but these have now been accelerated – alongside a multitude of completely new changes... Read more

Introducing the Top Tech Jobs of 2021

2020 has been an unprecedented year for technology. The disruption caused by COVID-19 quickly forced organisations to reprioritise their technology objectives and strategies overnight to enable them to operate in a newly remote environment... Read more

How to be Super Productive When Working from Home

At the present time, the challenge of ensuring high levels of productivity when working remotely is a very real one for many around the world, regardless of role or, indeed, the size of the business they work in. Promisingly, however, many have managed to crack the code, and are reaping the rewards, which I will be exploring in this blog... Read more

How to Upskill When You're Self-Isolating

The ongoing COVID-19 outbreak has seen rapid and significant change sweep across the world of work, with organisations activating business continuity plans and transitioning their employees to remote working... Read more

Networking in the New Era of Work

Networking: a word that drives fear into the heart of many introverts! That’s often because many still have a stereotypical view of what networking means. Such as working a room and making a strong charismatic first impression in a time limited situation. This is a very narrow and outdated view of networking in our current world... Read more

How to Craft your Job Post COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced organisations to undergo significant change and adjust to an unexpected new reality. From adapting products or services to adopting new technology to run their business, in a matter of weeks organisations have undergone levels of change that, pre-crisis, we wouldn’t have thought possible in years. Consequently, the people working in these... Read more