I am responsible for outsourcing telecommunications carrier software, which mainly involves tasks such as the delegation of system development projects to Group companies and other partners, as well as the procurement of IT engineers. In this work, I need to always be aware of quality, cost, and deadline factors, while negotiating with each partner in order to achieve my mission to procure at the highest possible quality and the lowest possible cost, all while staying within the project's budget. In practical terms, this means that I am mainly responsible for tasks such as evaluating potential partner companies, executing contracts, carefully reviewing the details of estimates from each partner company, negotiating prices, issuing orders, and receiving deliverables. In order to reduce project costs, I've been increasingly doing business with software companies in countries with a high level of technological capabilities available at a low price, such as China and Vietnam, and this means that I've been using English in e-mail interactions more frequently as well. I am in charge of a wide range of projects, ranging from a few people to several hundred people in scope. In addition to my usual work, I am also kept busy each day with tasks such as the consideration of procurement policies for reducing costs, and my job lets me enjoy the thrill of being involved in human resources, "monozukuri", and the flow of money.

During my sophomore year at the American university, I used its foreign exchange program to study abroad in the African nation of Ghana for half a year. Ghana was suffering from severe power shortages at the time, and there were frequent long power outages, some even as long as a whole week, causing the Ghanaians around me to express frustration with their country and a sense of despair. This inspired me to want to work at a Japanese manufacturer or trading company, thinking "Development without electric power is out of the question. Also, I want people to have pride and hope for their nation's future, because they are the driving force behind development. I want to introduce Japan's power generation technology to this nation, and contribute to its development."
While searching for a job, I made sure to describe just how I felt about the things that happened while I studied abroad, and about the valuable lessons I learned from my experiences in Ghana. During my interview with Hitachi as well, I spoke a lot about what I saw and felt while living in Ghana, and told them all about my dream of someday working at a job where I could use Japanese technology to support the development of emerging economies in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere. I still remember how the human resources representative showed interest in my dream, how lively the discussion became, and how strongly I felt the desire to work at this company. When I look back on those interviews, I think the interviewers must have positively evaluated the guts and courage I exhibited when it comes to jumping into unfamiliar environments, and I feel that I was able to achieve this through my experiences studying abroad.

I returned home to Japan temporarily during the winter vacation of my junior year, and got an early start on my job searching activities, such as attending corporate information sessions. I was able to start a little early because I was planning on graduating after three and a half years. Still, I had to rely on the Internet to a large extent for my job searching information, and I had a tough time with the interviews due to my lack of background information regarding the companies. In fact, when I was asked why I wanted to work for several of the companies, I had a hard time answering, which was frustrating.
In the summer of my senior year at the university, I attended career forums in both Tokyo and Los Angeles, and was interviewed by around thirty companies, mainly Japanese trading companies and manufacturers. I had my first interview with Hitachi at the Los Angeles career forum, and received a job offer after the second and final interview at the Boston career forum in October. Since I graduated at the end of December, I joined the company along with the other new employees in April, but some of the other employees who joined during the same year as me graduated from universities overseas in May or June, and entered the company in July. A lot of the companies participating in career forums have opted to choose year-round recruitment, and I think this will work to the advantage of exchange students studying at universities outside Japan.