New Graduate
When job hunting actually starts: the real schedule behind the official one
The gap between the official schedule and reality, a backward-planned timeline from your third year, and the catch-up plan if you are starting late.
What you can use right away
- The official schedule describes announcements, not hiring — real selection runs months earlier through internships.
- The practical start is early third year: summer internship applications are the de facto first selection.
- Starting late is recoverable — but by compressing self-analysis and going straight to live applications, not by despairing.
Two schedules: the official one and the real one
The official government-and-Keidanren schedule says company information opens March of your third year and interviews start June of your fourth. Treat this as the ceremonial calendar. The real one: summer internships of your third year function as first-round selection at many companies, early offers flow through internship routes from autumn onward, and by the official "start" in March, a meaningful share of your cohort already holds naitei or fast-track tickets.
This gap is the single most expensive information asymmetry in shukatsu. Students who treat March of third year as the starting gun discover they are joining a race whose leaders started nine months earlier. The correction is simple: the practical start is spring of third year, when summer internship applications open.
The backward plan from third year
Third year, April to June: self-analysis first pass and entry-sheet basics, then summer internship applications — treat these ES and interviews as real selection, because they are. July to September: the internships themselves, plus autumn internship applications. October to February: autumn/winter internships, early selection routes at foreign firms and startups (which run entirely ahead of the official calendar), OB/OG visits, and industry narrowing. March onward: the official flood — company briefings, mass ES season, and from June, the official interviews that for many students are re-confirmations of relationships already built.
Two calibrations by track: foreign-capital companies (consulting, finance, some tech) select in autumn-winter of third year — their calendar simply ignores the official one. Science students with lab recommendations (推薦) have a separate, later, narrower path — but the free-application route runs on the same early calendar as everyone else, and relying purely on 推薦 narrows options.
Try this checklist
- Map your target companies' actual calendars — internship deadlines, early routes — not the official one.
- Apply to summer internships in early third year with real ES effort; they are first-round selection.
- Start the self-analysis and gakuchika drafts before internship season, not before the official March.
What each phase is actually for
The internship phase is not about the content of the internship; it is about the relationship and the data. You are being evaluated for early routes, and you are evaluating — what this industry's work actually feels like, which company cultures fit, what questions their selections ask. A "failed" internship application in June of third year is free rehearsal for ES season with zero downside.
The autumn-winter phase is for narrowing: by February you want a target list of 15–30 companies across three tiers of reach, informed by internship experience and OB/OG conversations rather than brand recognition alone. The official season then becomes execution — volume ES submission against a list you already believe in, rather than panicked spray against a list you built in a weekend.
The late-start recovery plan
Starting in March of third year — or later — is recoverable every year, because the mass hiring season genuinely does run March through summer, and companies keep hiring through autumn for unfilled seats. The compression: one week of focused self-analysis (not one month), gakuchika and self-PR drafted against real ES deadlines (deadlines force quality faster than polishing in a vacuum), and immediate application volume — your first five ES and three interviews are practice; schedule them against companies you like but do not love.
What late starters should not do: skip straight to interviews-are-practice at their top choices (you get one shot there), or burn weeks perfecting documents before submitting any (feedback from real screening beats solo iteration). Late is a pacing problem, not a doom sentence.
A season this long needs a system
Shukatsu runs a year and a half across internships, early routes, and the official season — dozens of companies, each with its own deadlines, ES versions, and interview stages.
InterviewTrail AI tracks every company's stage from internship to final round, keeps each ES and interview record attached, and turns your season into one visible pipeline instead of a folder of spreadsheets.