Online Sourcing for Bilingual GTM
Online Sourcing for Bilingual GTM
Online sourcing with local tools is a rabbit hole you can easily get lost in, so let’s see if we can make things a little clearer by providing context on what they are and how we can use them.
Most overseas startups entering Japan start with agencies – and that makes sense. The harder question is not “which job board do we blitz”, but “what online channels can realistically help us source bilingual Go-To-Market talent?” For global tech vendors, it’s these GTM roles – sales, pre-sales, marketing, alliances – where the gap between theory and reality is sharpest.
Quick lifecycle note
Startup – agency-first, founder and Country Manager referrals, highly targeted direct sourcing.
Scale-up – add selective online channels to support repeatable GTM hiring at the top of the funnel.
Market leader – build employer brand presence, talent communities, and referral networks.
This post focuses on the online channels part of that mix, excluding LinkedIn.
Channels that actually help bilingual tech hiring
BizReach – Direct sourcing platform with a large professional user base. Best for mid-senior hires like Account Executives, CSMs, or Marketing Leads. Works well when your brand has some recognition in Japan, less so otherwise.
Daijob – Long-running bilingual job site. Effective for commercial and operations roles where English and Japanese are both required. Inside sales, support, and marketing roles tend to see decent traction here.
Green – A domestic IT/Web-focused site popular with engineers and designers. Strong in 20s–30s demographics. More effective for engineering or product roles than for bilingual commercial hires.
Wantedly – Social-style matching platform. Best for junior to mid-level roles where “cultural fit” and storytelling matter. Good for SDRs, marketing associates, and design hires.
Eight (8card) by Sansan – A professional network built from digitised business cards. Through its “Eight Career Design” service, employers can directly source passive candidates. Useful for sales, SE, and alliance manager roles. Think of it as a local alternative to LinkedIn outreach.
LAPRAS SCOUT – Niche direct-sourcing tool for engineers. Smaller pool but high-quality profiles with detailed technical signals. Best when targeting senior backend, ML, or SRE talent.
Indeed / Indeed PLUS – Aggregator with huge reach. Works for operations, support, and temp staffing, but not effective for niche bilingual or executive-level roles. Use tactically for volume hiring only.
Where the big mid-career boards fit
doda / Mynavi Tenshoku / Rikunabi NEXT – These sites dominate traffic rankings in Japan, but their applicant bases skew domestic-first and junior to mid-level. They’re useful for employer visibility and pipeline top-ups, but don’t expect strong results for bilingual or specialised tech roles.
Special mention - temp and contract
Townwork and Baitoru – Leading channels for part-time and temp hiring. Good for event staff or short-term bilingual support roles. Handy when speed and volume matter more than niche skills.
Global sourcing platforms – where they fit
In recent years, global sourcing tools have entered the mix, promising “all-in-one” recruiter platforms with AI-driven outreach and aggregated databases. These platforms are most effective for software engineer hiring, rather than GTM. The main names include:
HireEZ (formerly Hiretual) – US-built sourcing and engagement platform, integrates with ATS/CRM. Strong for tech talent globally, but thin in Japan.
Loxo – A sourcing and recruitment CRM platform. Good user interface and workflow automation, but low candidate coverage in Japan.
SeekOut – Advanced search and diversity sourcing tool, powerful for US/EU markets, but limited Japan footprint.
Entelo – Similar proposition: AI-driven sourcing across public data and profiles. Very light presence in Japan.
AmazingHiring – Known for tech-sourcing globally, particularly engineers. Database overlap in Japan is low.
Here’s the catch: in our testing, all of these tools have very poor coverage of Japan. The reason is simple – their user bases in Japan are limited, and it takes years to build a credible pool. Coupled with LinkedIn, they may provide initial success for global talent acquisition teams running direct sourcing campaigns, but they do not offer a sustained pipeline here.
For Japan, they remain supplementary at best – useful if you already use them globally, but not a solution to the local sourcing challenge.
How we deploy channels in an RPO for tech vendors
Agency-led core – mapped referrals, outbound sourcing, and targeted long-lists.
Add online channels selectively – not sprayed across the market, but chosen for role relevance:
Daijob for bilingual specialists.
BizReach for mid-senior direct sourcing.
Eight (8card) for passive career-minded professionals.
Green or Wantedly for engineering and culture-fit roles.
LAPRAS SCOUT for high-skill engineers.
Indeed PLUS for volume ops or temp.
Measure hard – cost per qualified intro, channel-to-onsite pass-through, and conversion. Drop channels that don’t produce.
In my own experience running and eventually selling a recruitment business with RPO as part of the model, job boards consistently produced candidates with the highest turnover rates. One reason was that these job seekers were usually registered across multiple platforms and constantly being contacted by recruiters. If they began to struggle in their role, or simply lost motivation, timing made it easy for them to slip away. That’s a deeper conversation for another post – our next article will dive into turnover and why job board hires are often the least “sticky.”
Our take
If you are building a bilingual team in Japan, online channels are there to assist your agency-led motion, not replace it. The winning play is targeted direct sourcing plus the one or two online channels that truly fit the role family you’re hiring.
Sources
This post used AI to
【最新】求人サイト訪問数ランキングまとめ＜2025年3月版＞, 株式会社リソースクリエイション, 17 March 2025
BizReach, Visional IR materials (2024)
Daijob, employer pages and bilingual user database
Green, Atrae ecosystem and service overview
Wantedly, user statistics and employer case studies
Sansan Eight (8card), Sansan Corp News and PR Times
LAPRAS SCOUT, product introduction and case studies
Indeed PLUS, service description and distribution model
Townwork and Baitoru, monthly site traffic data
Disclaimer: This post was written with the support of AI tools to gather and summarise information, but the observations and conclusions come from my direct experience running recruitment businesses.
