Recruitment information firms are also making good use of the Internet. One firm established a Web site in 1996, compiling information on employment opportunities for students from more than 3,000 companies throughout Japan. The site includes corporate information, reports from people already working in various positions at the companies, and schedules regarding when and where orientation meetings for each company are held. In 1998, this firm began a service that allows students to post their resumes and descriptions of desired positions. Students can register under any of 35 job categories, and can provide information related to what geographical area they would like to work in, their language skills, any overseas living experience, volunteer activities they may have engaged in, and more. The aim of this service is to match students up with corporate personnel needs.

In addition to these strategies, there was the extra trouble of having to translate all the original promotion material into Japanese, as well as adding subtitles to the film itself. The head promoter comments: "We were tight on time, since the film was being released simultaneously in Japan and the United States. Working under those conditions, having to rush the translations, was tough; it's miraculous that everything worked out fine."

Accelerating Revision of Lifetime Employment
Employment activities utilizing the Internet basically began in 1995. Introduced at that time by a limited number of high-tech companies, this service was aimed at students majoring in fields related to electronic and information science. The past one or two years, however, has seen many companies employing the Internet in their recruiting endeavors. According to a survey conducted in spring 1997 by Keidanren (the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations), approximately 40% of its 400 or so member companies had already set up homepages aimed at students. This ratio is expected to rise well above 50% in 1998.

In 1988 universities and industrial organizations agreed to various deadlines regarding employment activities for new graduates: Students were not allowed to call on companies until July 1, screening of applicants could not begin until August 1, and job offers could be made starting October 1 at the earliest. This agreement has long been widely ignored, however, and as companies and students have gained immediate and free access to each other with the heightened use of the Internet, the agreement was officially abolished in 1997.

A tremendous drop has been seen in the volume of corporate brochures and other printed literature traditionally sent to students as soon as they became college seniors. Also absent is what used to be a common sight, almost symbolic of summer, on the first day of July: students lined up in front of popular companies, standing stiff in their newly-purchased, navy-blue business suits.

Job-hunting and hiring season now starts even earlier. Peak hiring season now runs from late March through April of the year before graduation. And the actual entry of new employees into their companies is no longer limited to spring, as more and more companies are beginning to make job offers year-round, in an attempt to secure graduates of overseas universities and competent personnel with specialized skills. This diversification of corporate recruitment activities could accelerate the trend to revise the lifetime employment system.