"Web Now!" – A Bridge Between Vocational Schools and the Web Industry

As mid-February passes, the time has come for next year's graduate recruitment activities to get into full swing again. As a start, on our graduate recruiting website (in Japanese), we've just posted the schedule for our corporate information sessions (in Japanese) for entry in fiscal 2025. If you're a student graduating next year, please feel free to join us.

Related to our graduate recruitment activities, in mid-December, we held the "`Web Now!" event for the sixth time. A now annual fixture that has been held in the late autumn to early winter period since 2018, Web Now! is an event co-hosted by technical colleges and web design and development agencies.

While in recent years the event had been held online due to the novel-coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic, last year's sixth iteration was the first time in three years that it was held in-person. While a report overviewing the "Web Now! Vol. 6: Frontline of the Industry x Steps to the Future!" (in Japanese) can be found here, I'd like to note that, thanks to the efforts of everyone who attended, we were able to hold a very productive event.

Regarding the origins of Web Now!, the event was first planned after receiving feedback from technical college tutors that the number of student applications from those who seek careers in the web industry was on the decline. If such a trend were to continue, it would lead to a severe situation not only for vocational schools, but also for the entire web industry, or, to put it bluntly, a matter of life and death.

In Japan, technical colleges are educational institutions that, through a focus on providing practical education, allow students to acquire the skills, expertise, and know-how required for specific occupations. Regarding our company, many talented people joined after studying at such colleges.

Going forward, I believe that those of us working on the frontlines need to convey more directly to technical college students the realities of the web industry - especially the appeal of web design/development. While this may seem like a roundabout way, such collaboration and communication may eventually halt the decline in the number of applicants ...... it was from such a hypothesis that the "Web Now! series was inaugurated.

I would like readers to understand that "Web Now!" has no motives regarding the practice of "aotagai" - the recruiting of students before agreed dates for such activities. Therefore, we've asked all participating web development companies to refrain from promoting their own firms. So, I, who've participated in this event every year since Vol. 1, contribute from the standpoint of one who works in the web industry.

Since being a once-a-year event, I didn't expect any immediate results, however the number of college applicants has since recovered. Furthermore, I've also heard that those seeking employment in the web industry has increased - while "Web Now!" is not the only factor, we have recognized an effect of holding the event on an ongoing basis.

Since the event`s commencement, the number of participating technical schools and web production companies has gradually increased. While there are certain issues to be addressed, such as how to combine the advantages of both online and offline events to maximize their effectiveness, we would like to continue promoting "Web Now!" as a bridge between vocational schools and the web industry.

Even though the name and nature of the event may change in the future, we hope to continue participating in opportunities such as "Web Now!". Through such efforts, we hope to increase the transparency of the industry and realize a "three-way win-win" situation between students seeking careers in the web industry, vocational schools, and web design agencies and related organizations.