[Student PR Staff] Interview with Accepted Students Vol.4

We, the student PR staff, disseminate information about JIU from a student perspective both inside and outside the university. We mainly interview students and cover events and disseminate information about them.

Student PR staff: Hikari Miyata (3rd year Faculty of Management and Information Sciences)

This time we interviewed Hara Aoi (right), a fourth-year student Faculty of Management and Information Sciences. Hara has been interested in computers and programming since she was a child, and in her third year of university she narrowed down her field to systems engineering, participating in one-day internships at several companies. After that, she attended company information sessions, had interviews, and was offered a job. Hara, who has great initiative, shared her job hunting experiences with us.

Looking back on my job search

Hara explains about the aptitude test for system engineers

I participated in my first internship in the summer of my third year of university. After that, I attended several social information sessions, had interviews, and received a job offer. I started looking for a job when I was talking with a friend at the beginning of my third year of university, and when I learned that others were doing so, I started taking action. I had a clear desire to go to a university for information technology and work in a related field after graduation. In my third year of high school, I started working part-time teaching programming at the computer school I had attended in junior high school, and continued doing so after entering university. Through part-time work and university classes, I found programming interesting, and for my summer internship, I narrowed it down to the system engineer industry. First, to get to know the companies, I used the job information sites Rikunabi and Mynavi, and participated in one-day internships at about six system development companies. There, I learned about the existence of aptitude tests for system engineers, such as "CAB" and "GAB". Until then, I thought that the SPI test was the norm, so I quickly bought a textbook a few weeks before the aptitude test and studied and focused on my weak areas.

Interview preparation

The thing I put the most effort into during my job hunting was to have plenty of stories to talk about. I mainly wrote about my qualifications, the website I created, and part-time jobs. After I had written down all of my stories on paper, I asked Career Development and Placement Center to help me practice for interviews. I used the center a total of five times, both online and in person. Career Development and Placement Center staff asked a senior colleague who was aiming to become a systems engineer about the types of questions he was asked and the things he was asked, and compiled them as interview practice. This was very helpful because I was actually asked about them during the interview. I felt that people who talk happily in the interview leave a better impression than people who simply speak words they have prepared in advance.

Evaluated Action Ability

本格的に就職活動を始める時に、ずっとやってみたいと思っていたIT関連のブログを2023年の2月末から書き始めました。ブログでは、取得した資格の勉強法や、Excelの関数などについて解説しています。自身の知識をアウトプットすることによって、閲覧者への知識の提供・共有することができただけでなく、分かりやすく説明するという力も養うことができたと思っています。初心者にも分かりやすく伝えるため、イラストを使い、広告は記事の途中に入れないという工夫をしていました。その結果、就職活動中には閲覧数が1800件、ユーザー数は3000人を達成しました。就職活動の面接でも話題にあがり、最終面接では、ほとんどの時間ブログの話をしていたほど面接官の関心を集めました。現在では7万ユーザーを達成しています。

Advice for juniors starting their job search

It can be quite stressful when others around you start before you, but I think it's okay not to worry about it. For example, even if you fail the final interview, it's important to switch your mind and accept that the company just wasn't right for you, and move on to the next step. I attended the same company's information sessions multiple times, and at the end of the roundtable discussion where you can talk to employees, I would ask the same questions to different employees each time to make sure the information I had was correct. I also recommend gathering information about companies not only from job information sites for new graduates, but also from job information sites for people changing jobs.