The government's schedule for graduate hiring asks employers to start selection on 1 June of the students' final year and to make formal offers, naitei, from 1 October. The months in between are covered by the nainaitei: an informal promise that the company intends to make a formal offer. In practice offers come earlier still. In a survey by the Recruit group's research unit, 81.6% of university students graduating in 2026 already held an offer on 1 June 2025, the official start of selection.
The legal status differs from a naitei. An accepted formal naitei creates an employment contract, so withdrawing it is treated almost like a dismissal. A nainaitei usually does not go that far, because pay, conditions and joining procedures have not yet been set. It still has some legal weight. In the Kose RE case in February 2011, the Fukuoka High Court found no employment contract had formed. But it held that a company that withdrew a nainaitei a few days before the formal offer date, citing worsening business, had breached good faith and violated the student's protected expectation, and awarded damages.
Students commonly collect several nainaitei and decline all but one, so employers expect some to fall through. The term is also used, more loosely, for a verbal offer to a mid-career candidate before the paperwork.
What it means for a foreign employer
- Recruiting graduates means working to this calendar. By the time selection officially opens, most strong students already hold an offer.
- Expect withdrawals. Students holding several nainaitei will drop some. Keep in touch until 1 October and beyond.
- Do not treat it as free to cancel. The closer you are to the formal offer date and the more definite you have been, the greater the risk of damages if you withdraw.
- Keep mid-career offers in writing. A verbal "we want you" to an experienced candidate creates expectations. Move quickly to a written offer with clear conditions.
Sources
- Cabinet Secretariat, request to employers on the recruitment schedule for students graduating in 2027.
- Fukuoka High Court, Kose RE case, 16 February 2011. A second claim against the same company was decided by the same court on 10 March 2011 to similar effect.
- Indeed Recruit Partners, Shushoku Mirai Kenkyujo, job-hunting process survey of 2026 graduates, 1 June 2025.