Overcoming shūkatsu allergy: use of anthropological and sociological works on job hunting at a university class in Japan

This paper explores the complex cultural and historical dimensions of shūkatsu – the structured process of job hunting among university students in Japan – through the lens of a university class (seminar) designed to encourage critical reflection. Drawing on classroom discussions, interviews with alumni, and comparative insights from Japan, Europe, and anthropological literature, the study highlights the emotional burden and structural contradictions that students face during shūkatsu. While Japan’s system of mass hiring upon graduation (shinsotsu-ikkatsu-saiyō) has ensured employment stability, it has also created opaque selection mechanisms, emotional stress, and mismatches between personal aspirations and job assignments. Students’ narratives reveal feelings of shame, frustration, and confusion around employment expectations, often reinforced by broader social ideologies such as jikosekinin-ron (individual responsibility). The seminar encouraged students to question dominant norms, compare their experiences with other systems like France’s internship-heavy model, and rethink employment not as a personal achievement but as a historically contingent rite of passage into shakaijin (a “full member of society”). Ultimately, the paper advocates for more space within higher education to confront neoliberal pressures and foster alternative imaginaries of adulthood and work. Rather than offering a how-to guide, the seminar and this study invite both students and educators to reexamine the meaning of working life in Japan and to consider more inclusive, reflective, and context-aware approaches to employment and education.