How to Recruit Through Japanese Culinary Schools

Japan's culinary schools run a free job placement service, and careers offices work on the school's own academic-year calendar: most start taking vacancies in the summer before graduation and finalise placements by winter. New graduates rarely meet a work visa's experience requirement, so a working holiday, a spell at a group restaurant in Japan first, or hiring an alumnus a few years out are the three routes that work. Contact the careers office directly with a Japanese-format posting.

1. What a licensed cook training school is

Article 3 of Japan's Cooks Act (調理師法) lets a graduate of a prefectural-designated cook training facility (調理師養成施設) apply for the cook's licence (調理師免許) without sitting the exam everyone else must pass after two years' work experience. JATCC (全国調理師養成施設協会) counted 266 designated facilities in fiscal 2025: mostly vocational colleges (専修学校), plus some high schools with a cooking course and a few junior colleges.

What matters for an employer abroad is that graduates have almost no paid work experience when they leave. School time is not counted as work history under most visa rules. That single fact drives everything else on this page.

2. The academic-year calendar: when schools take vacancies

Japan's academic year runs April to March, and careers offices work to a rhythm built around it, though nothing in law fixes the calendar for vocational schools the way it does for high school graduates. Treat this as a planning outline; each school sets its own deadlines.

That gap between graduation and a realistic start date abroad is the single most common cause of a placement falling through: a family expects work in April, and a visa is still 8 weeks away. State your expected start month at first contact, not after the student has turned down other offers.

3. How a school's free job placement service works

A school's careers support is a form of job placement in law. Article 33-2 of the Employment Security Act (職業安定法) lets a school, after notifying the labour ministry, run a free job placement service, covering "students of the college or persons who have graduated from it".

• No fee. A school does not charge for passing on your vacancy.
• Alumni are included. A careers office can put your vacancy in front of graduates with a few years' experience, not only this year's class.
• Each school sets its own scope. Whether it accepts overseas vacancies at all has to be asked, not assumed.

Under Article 5-3, an employer lodging a vacancy with a placement provider (schools included) must state the job content, wages, working hours and other conditions. How far this reaches an employer outside Japan is case by case, but a careers office judges your vacancy against the domestic ones on its desk, so prepare one in the conventional Japanese format: pay, days off, housing, travel and visa arrangements. See writing a job posting for chefs in Japan.

4. The visa barrier for new graduates, in one line

Most work visas that admit chefs ask for one to two years of experience or a salary a new graduate cannot reach; the UK has closed new chef sponsorship outright. Working holiday visas are the exception, since they ask for none. The full country-by-country table, and which routes stay open, is on our companion guide recruiting from Japanese culinary schools; we do not repeat it here.

5. Three realistic hiring routes

Route A: graduates on a working holiday

If your restaurant is in a working holiday partner country, this is the fastest way to take someone straight out of school, since the scheme does not test experience. It is applied for by the individual, not sponsored by you, and quotas change, so confirm current rules before setting a start date.

Route B: a group restaurant in Japan first, then a transfer

If your company has a restaurant or affiliate in Japan, hire the graduate there, let them build a record, and move them once a route opens up. Worked through as a timeline:

Secondment and local hiring are compared in secondment versus local hire.

Route C: alumni with a few years' experience

The placement service covers graduates, not only this year's class. Someone 3 to 5 years out has learned the job in Japan, is more likely to clear a visa's experience bar, and is often already weighing a move. Ask the careers office whether they can treat your vacancy as one for alumni.

6. Which schools, and how to approach the careers office

JATCC's directory lists every designated facility by prefecture, but it does not filter by cuisine, so you have to check school by school. Two examples we could confirm directly:

• Tsuji Culinary Institute (辻調理師専門学校), Osaka: runs a dedicated one-year Japanese Cuisine Basic Course (日本料理本科) and a two-year Japanese Cuisine Creative Management Course (日本料理クリエイティブ経営学科).
• Tokyo Sushi and Japanese Cuisine Culinary School (東京すし和食調理専門学校): appears in JATCC's own school list under that name, which signals a sushi- and washoku-focused curriculum.

Beyond these, work through JATCC's list for schools near your target labour pool or close to your format (sushi, kappo, ramen), and check each site for a named Japanese-cuisine course first.

What a careers office wants from an overseas employer, beyond the posting itself:

• A Japanese-format posting, not an English one translated by machine.
• Photos, not just text. The restaurant, kitchen and staff accommodation, since a student who has never left Japan cannot picture the job from words alone.
• Family concerns answered before they are asked. Parents are often part of a school-leaver's decision. A paragraph on safety, the local Japanese community and how contact home works saves the office guessing.
• One contact who replies in Japanese. Slow or English-only replies read as a sign the workplace will be hard to work in.

A short first email to a careers office:

Keep records once you start: applicants, hires and who is still with you after a year, by school. Schools notice which employers keep their promises, and referrals stop the year a graduate comes back with a different story from the one you sent.

7. International graduates

Japanese culinary schools also train international students. MAFF's Japanese food culture overseas promotion training scheme (日本の食文化海外普及人材育成事業) lets foreign graduates of these schools work in Japanese food service in Japan for up to five years while developing their skills; it is a scheme for working in Japan, not a pipeline to restaurants abroad. See our explanation of the scheme.

Even so, a foreign cook trained in Japan may later return home or move to a third country. Hiring someone in their own country often means they already hold the right to work there, which removes the visa barrier this page mostly deals with. Ask a school whether it has students from the country your restaurant is in.

General information, not legal or immigration advice. Visa requirements, working holiday conditions and how individual schools handle job placement can change. Confirm with official sources in each country and with each school before recruiting.