A 23-year-old student from China who attends the prestigious University of Tokyo is now looking for a job in Japan.

But her quest to achieve the "Japanese dream" of working at a major Japanese company, and earning roughly four times what she could make back home, has hit a snag: she feels Japanese firms are not ready to hire international students.

"It's hard to keep looking for a job (in Japan) when I cannot tell whether they would really hire international students like me," she said.