Amazon Japan Yup Manager
You Polyglat polyglotHave you ever heard the word? It just refers to people with multilingual skills.
I met Polyglat, who is Korean but speaks English, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese. Furthermore, I had a score of 180 on the JLPT N1 level of the Japanese language test and a score of 990 on the TOEIC English language test. We invited Yup (hereafter, Mr. Y) to talk with us via LAN.
It is said that he currently works at Amazon Japan and is staying in Japan. Therefore, the interview was conducted by compiling questions starting with various questions from employment to work, and ending with questions about learning as a language proficiency person. I have many questions like all of you, so I decided to split the post into part 1 and 2.
Part 1 will introduce the episode and process of getting a job and working at Amazon Japan, and part 2 will be divided into episodes as a person with 5 language proficiency.
Q. Hi Yup! I'm honored to meet you. What are you up to? Please introduce yourself briefly.
Hello, this is Y. I work at Amazon Japan. Specifically, I am in charge of logistics management for Amazon Japan.
While managing the shipping process for Japanese customers, I also work as a manager working on development/CS/projects in my team.
Q. Is this your first job? How did you join Amazon?
This is my first time working full time. <일본 기업 박람회>I participated in an event held at COEX in Samseong-dong, Seoul, and I was given an interview with Amazon Japan as a visiting company, so I got a job on good terms. Like all of you, I went through the job preparation process. I think it took about half a year. I submitted my resume to various companies, but Amazon was the last company I applied for, and I got a job.
Q. How do you think you got accepted to Amazon Japan?
The Amazon company has a recruitment philosophy. I think it was in line with this principle because it was OLP (Our Leadership Principles). I think the connection between my experiences and OLP didn't lead to recruitment.
Q. What kind of experiences have you had?
When I was a job-ready student, I always reminded me of 3 typical experiences. Just to mention two of them, one was working as an NGO and the other was having experience abroad.
I've been working as an NGO since I graduated from high school, but when I think about it now, I think it started when I was in the 3rd year of high school. I attended a lecture event, and I met an American representative there, and I was impressed and told them via email that they had listened carefully to the lecture. At the same time, I included a message that I would like to establish a school in Africa. Thankfully, I got his reply, and I went with my father to meet him around the beginning of my 3rd year of high school. I met him and suggested that we go to Africa together, and on the day of the high school graduation ceremony, he gave up his own ticket and we worked together as an NGO for about 2 weeks. Funding to build a library based on 2 weeks of field trips was my mission at the time, so the experience of building a team related to building a library is still precious.
The second one is an overseas experience. I lived abroad for about 7 years. The first semester in Finland, the first semester in Japan, one and a half years in China, and the first semester in Mexico are the most memorable. In the process of living abroad, the most important thing for me was meeting people. As a result, I started hosting various meetings, and before I knew it, a community was formed as a meeting to meet people from all over the world. I remember that a language exchange meeting was organized in Mexico with a size of about 2,400 people.
Q. I'm curious about Amazon's corporate culture. Do you have a unique culture?
It's my first job, so it's hard to compare it to other places, but what I felt was that no one was easy to get around. It's an atmosphere where everyone is working hard in their field. Also, the company culture, which changes very quickly, can be said to be unique. The changes are very fast, both systemically and in terms of manpower. There's absolutely no need to worry about getting bored or falling into mannerism. Make every day like the first day! The motto also seems to play a part, and in a way, it can be stressful to keep up with the changes.
Q. Do you communicate in Japanese at work? Or Korean? English?
Since it's Amazon Japan, at least 95% of my daily activities are taught in Japanese. However, when major issues arise, we communicate in English in the communication section with overseas engineers. Communicate in English online or offline in Germany, India, and the US. Amazon Japan also has American people, but most of the people I work with are Japanese.
Q. Are there any episodes that come from cultural differences?
There is a culture that respects privacy more than Korea. I'm an active person, and I definitely think there's something wary about. In fact, I think it's a characteristic unique to Japanese culture rather than Amazon Japan culture.
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The story as a language speaker continues in part 2.
An episode of the secret to getting a perfect score on the language exam and the language learning process leading up to speaking 5 languages!
Be sure to check out the next post.
See you in the next post~
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