Methodology
The 2027 edition is the first. This page states what is being measured and how, and will be updated with the sample and response rate when the field period closes.
Purpose
To measure, from employers directly, how companies in Japan hire at Director level and above (部長相当以上), and to repeat the measurement every year under identical questions so that trends can be read by company, by segment and for the market.
Sampling frame
Every company that files an annual securities report on EDINET (3,789 at the 2026 build) and every unlisted employer with 101 or more permanent employees in the MHLW women-advancement database (36,775 at 6 October 2026): 40,564 companies, matched on corporate number. The frame is the register behind the Japan Human Capital Data.
Method
Online questionnaire, 33 questions in English and Japanese, one response per company, identified by corporate number. Questions ask for counts rather than percentages, so that rates are computed the same way for every company; every factual question allows "don't know", and questions that do not apply are skipped. The two language versions are translated forward and back and pretested with HR leaders in each language before the field period.
Invitations go to HR and talent-acquisition heads by email or LinkedIn message. We identify them from public sources (company websites, press releases, published interviews), from Makana Partners' professional contact records and from Yan Sen Lu's professional network on LinkedIn. Each invitation says where we found the person's details and how to stop further messages; companies not reached receive a postal invitation in a later run. Any employer in the frame can also take part unprompted from this site; those respondents confirm a business email before their answers count, and are analysed separately as well as with the invited sample.
Analysis
Results are reported by ownership (Japanese listed, Japanese unlisted, foreign-owned, meaning more than half foreign-held) and size band. Because the frame carries each company's filed data, nonresponse is checked against it: respondents are compared with non-respondents on industry, size, ownership, women in management and average salary, and, where they differ, results are weighted to the frame by ownership and size, with both weighted and unweighted figures published.
Field period
The survey closes in December 2026. The report is published in early 2027.
Publication rules
- No figure is published for any cell with fewer than 20 responses.
- No individual company's answers are published, licensed or sold.
- Companies are named only as participants, and only with the permission the questionnaire asks for separately.
- Peer medians are published only after the field period closes, never while answers are coming in.
- The sample, response rate by segment, nonresponse checks and exclusions are published with the edition. The first edition will be smaller than the established Japanese mid-career hiring surveys; it asks employers about Director-level hiring, separates foreign-owned companies, and is keyed to each company's own filed data.
Funding
Produced by Makana Partners K.K.. Founding partners who subscribe to the benchmark data receive aggregates only and have no influence on the questions or the findings.
Independence from executive search
Makana Partners K.K. is an executive search firm. Survey answers are never entered into its client or candidate records and are never used for business development, sourcing or any search assignment. Only the survey's editor can export responses; exports leave out respondents' names and emails unless needed to send results, and every export is logged. Respondents who ask to be contacted about the findings are passed on with their name and email only, never their answers.
Data retention
Company answers are kept so that a company's own trajectory can be shown to it in later years. Respondents' names and contact details are deleted three years after the company's last response. A company can ask for its responses to be deleted at any time at editor@hardestmarket.com.