M&A strategy jobs

Dear all,

I have landed an M&A strategy consulting job in February this year at one of the Big 4 in Japan. Whilst I am genuinely enjoying the contents of the projects (commercial due diligence, PMI, M&A process improvement etc.), I find working with Japanese people quite stressful at times.

Please bear in mind that this is nothing personal against Japanese people and I am one of them in fact. It is just that I spent 10 years outside Japan.

I am not currently looking for a new job but I would like to ask you for an advice to transfer to a similar job outside of Japan.

Cheers, Yasu

6 Comments
 
Best Response
  1. They think work hours = added value
  2. Rigid and not flexible. Logic tree is a useful tool but not everything can be solved with logic
  3. They never praise their co-workers but love to criticize
  4. The way they criticize: they can just point out mistakes or say what they think are right. But they go on about the mistakes for hours.
  5. Their instructions are unclear: when they ask you to do one thing, they expect you to do more than that. (eg: when you are asked to make a reservation at restaurant X, they expect you to ask the restaurant if it's a smoking free restaurant, budget per person etc.)
  6. They never say no to their clients: even if what the clients are asking are out of scope or non-sense, they would never say no to them. They would do whatever the clients ask them to without charging them.
  7. and many more....

Note: the above doesnt apply to everyone so please dont take this as a general perception of all Japanese people.

 

Since you work in a big 4, why don't you ask for internal transfer?

Otherwise, you can work in the M&A department of a big industrial company, It will probably be less stressful than in a big 4 firm.

 

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