It's impossible. You have to speak Japanese for starters. The interesting thing about Japan is that everyone going through the schooling system takes six years of cumpulsory English language, yet only 3% of the population actually speaks English. Additionally, the M&A market in Japan is pretty weak. Japan is a country of buyers with no sellers. It took KKR over three years to close their first deal in Japan, and it was only a few hundred million USD buyout. Most of the people I know in Japan M&A and PE are trying to get OUT because the deal flow is so crappy (several PE shops have closed their Japan offices or scaled back considerably in recent years after a big push pre- and post-Lehman).

 
Ravenous:
It's impossible. You have to speak Japanese for starters. The interesting thing about Japan is that everyone going through the schooling system takes six years of cumpulsory English language, yet only 3% of the population actually speaks English. Additionally, the M&A market in Japan is pretty weak. Japan is a country of buyers with no sellers. It took KKR over three years to close their first deal in Japan, and it was only a few hundred million USD buyout. Most of the people I know in Japan M&A and PE are trying to get OUT because the deal flow is so crappy (several PE shops have closed their Japan offices or scaled back considerably in recent years after a big push pre- and post-Lehman).
Kind of confirms what I always believed that Japan is not big on new businesses.
 
Best Response
musto430:
Sorry to keep switching this discussion - how does everything above compare to HK and Singapore?

Singapore is fairly easy to get into for experienced hires even without speaking foreign languages beyond English. There are a ton of Asia funds based there due to the beneficial tax codes. In fact, a lot of Japanese investment firms have relocated to both HK and Singapore for that very reason. There are definitely some big emerging market / Asia funds that have recently been hiring analysts (and may still be) in Singapore -- I interviewed with one but passed because they have a history of blowing themselves up. If you want to do Singapore, I would check out INSEAD's program as they probably have good local placement.

Am not as familiar with HK -- obviously everyone there speaks English, but a lot of HK business is still China-focused, so Mandarin is a must for most of the jobs I've seen. Easier to crack than Japan, but still not an easy move.

Regardless of the country, you are going to have a tough time moving to new geographies without any experience. You have to offer any of these firms something pretty substantial for them to want to even consider relocating you.

 

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