"Please introduce yourself."The first thing you do in almost every Japanese interview.And the first place most foreign candidates quietly lose the room.Not with bad answers. With too many of them.
1/ Most people treat 自己紹介 as a summary — trying to cover as much ground as possible before the questions start. This is the wrong mental model. Your introduction isn't a summary. It's an opening. Its job is to create one clear professional impression in under 75 seconds.
2/ The three patterns that kill introductions: → Too long (3–5 minutes of life history) → No thread (jumping between unrelated topics) → Personal instead of professional ("I love Japan" vs. "I've built my career around X") All three share the same root problem: answering the wrong question.
3/ The structure that works: Greeting Name → Current background → Relevant experience → Core strength → Why you're here → Clean close. Six parts. 60–75 seconds. One clear professional identity.
4/ The test: after your introduction, can the interviewer answer "who is this person professionally and why are they here?" in one sentence? If not — it needs more focus, not more content.
5/ Full guide — complete before/after examples, 4 mini exercises, and the most common mistakes with exact fixes — is live now as a free Patreon post.
Link in bio.Your intro sets the tone for everything that follows. Get it right.#WorkInJapan#JapanInterview#自己紹介#JapanCareer#ForeignersInJapan#InterviewTips#JobHuntingJapanpatreon.com/posts/how-to-int…