After selling his recruitment business in England in his early 30s, Matt Nicholls, 46, took a break from the grind. Then, in 2013, he moved to Tokyo to work at one of Japan’s major recruiting firms, Robert Walters, and now runs Cornerstone Recruitment Japan, which has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies of its kind in Tokyo.
1. How does a man from Lytham St Annes end up in Tokyo? After I graduated, I taught English for three years in Nagoya. Then I went back to England, got into recruitment and started a company called Nicholls Lindsay with a friend. When I sold it, I spent a couple years playing rugby and having a good time. But I began thinking, is it possible to work in Japan again without really speaking Japanese? It turned out there were plenty of opportunities in recruitment.
2. Why do you think recruitment is such a popular industry for non-Japanese workers here? I think people like having control over their earning potential. Also, there’s no language barrier, which is a big plus.
3. Who did you first work for in Japan’s recruitment industry? About 10 years ago, I interviewed with a few of the big recruiting firms and ended up getting a job offer with Robert Walters as a director, so I came back to Japan and worked for them.
4. Where did you go from there? In 2015, I moved to RGF, which is part of Recruit Holdings, a big Japanese company, where I was managing director for all its international business. We were making a loss when I arrived, but when I left we were making more than $50 million a year.
5. When did you start your own company in Japan? As a result of the growth at RGF, my business partner, Alex Zoboli, and I received investment from Morgan Stanley, which is pretty rare. That was four years ago, and we’ve been running the business ever since.
6. What is the advantage of setting up your own business in Japan? There’s a low setup cost for a recruitment business. You don’t need to buy any products or equipment or anything like that. If you’ve got the contacts, you’ve got a PC, you’ve got the skills, then you can do it.
7. Do you consider yourself driven? I think so. Maybe more than ever now. Getting Tier 1 investment to set up a business in Japan is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. With around 60 staff, we’re now well on the way to where we want to be in terms of growth. So, yeah, massively driven.
8. What is Cornerstone Recruitment Japan? We’re a mid-career recruitment company that places bilingual Japanese candidates into roles at international businesses. Our clients are mostly household names, like Ferrari and Chanel. We’re a really multinational company — our employees comprise 19 nationalities.
9. What does the name Cornerstone refer to? We actually have two investors: Morgan Stanley and Cornerstone Global Partners. There might be a Masonic connection to the name, but the main idea is that good employees are the cornerstone of every good business.
10. What makes a good recruiter? What makes a good recruiter is the same as what makes a good salesperson: having tenacity, being driven and motivated, being relentless and taking the knocks. But also, you're working with people. Your candidates are the products, so to speak. It’s not like you’re selling furniture — the furniture doesn’t get a say in where it goes. So I think emotional intelligence is important because it’s such a people-centric job.
11. What excites you about the job? As a recruiter, you’re always in control of your own destiny and what you earn. As long as you’re working for a good company, there really are no limitations. And it’s one of the few industries where it really doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, how old you are, or what nationality you are. It’s entirely results-based. I think that’s comforting, and it’s rare in Japan.
12. You’ve made some YouTube videos on tricks of the trade. What was the impetus behind that? It was mainly focused on internal hiring. It’s a competitive market out there and we wanted to attract people to our business by giving them an honest view of what it’s like inside our company and an honest view of what recruitment is about. And it works: we get so many applications now directly to our business. We’re not MrBeast yet, but we get around 12,000 views on videos, which isn’t bad for a business-related channel.
13. Have you recruited for any strange jobs or received any strange requests from clients? We get some super weird requests from clients, like, “I need an attractive woman to be my PA,” which we can actually turn down. I don’t want to be too negative, but one of the most interesting things about this industry is that you realize some areas of business where Japan is still 20 years behind what we might consider to be appropriate.
14. Are there any achievements at Cornerstone that you’re particularly proud of? We’re on the Great Place to Work Japan listings, which we’re really proud of. When you get listed as one of the top 100 places to work in Japan, it’s based on the anonymous feedback of your employees, so we have no input whatsoever. We were in the top four places to work for women in Japan in 2023, which is awesome.
15. Where does Cornerstone go from here? We want to be one of the top three recruiters in Tokyo, and I think we’ll need to grow to around 200 people to achieve that. We’ve already grown one business from 20 people to 230, so we know the path.
16. Have you noticed any major changes in the industry or in business since you started working in Japan? COVID-19 forced some changes. Now we have to ask candidates how they feel about remote work. Even in our business we’d never considered it, but now we’re two days at home and three in the office. In general, business changes in Japan happen at a much slower rate.
17. Outside of work, what do you like about living in Tokyo? I know it’s a cliche, but I still love the safety of living in Japan. I love the choice of food. I like driving in Japan, too, whether that’s driving to work or just out and about. And I have met lots of really open minded people here, the kind of people I want to hang out with. I’ve never enjoyed the trains, though; I’d rather be in my car with a podcast on. And I still miss British bacon and sausages.
18. You’re not a fan of the Frankfurter-style sausages they do here, then? Oh, they’re horrific. Horrific.
19. What else do you do with your free time? I grew up playing golf and used to caddie at Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club, but I don’t really play in Japan. I love sports generally: rugby, boxing, MMA. I’m a big Everton football (soccer) fan. And I’m a big ancient history buff. I’m really interested in the idea that there might have been an advanced civilization that existed 12,000 to 14,000 years ago that isn’t in the historical record. I’m massively down that rabbit hole.
20. Will you ever return to England, or are you happy to set up shop in Japan for the rest of your life? I miss England a lot. Everyone laughs at me when I say this, but I miss English food. It’s improved dramatically since I was a kid. And I miss watching Everton in the afternoon rather than at midnight. I think I’d definitely like to retire in England at some point. But I’m enjoying life in Japan, and the work that keeps me here.
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