tl;dr: see title.
Hi everyone! I'm a 26 year old STEM PhD student planning to finish my PhD and leave academia within a year from now. As a high school student, I did a one-year exchange to Tokyo during which I learned some Japanese. I restarted studying the language for about a year now and am at around N2 level. I'm currently considering my options after my PhD, including whether there are any ways to live in Japan again.
From what I understand, finding a company that would hire me and sponsor a visa as a fresh graduate is basically impossible since there's no reason why they wouldn't hire a Japanese 新卒 instead.
Basically my Plan A would be to find a job in my home country either at a Japanese company or at a company with strong ties to Japan, gain work experience, and hope that at some point, an opportunity comes up to move to Japan as a 駐在員. Alternatively, I could gain work experience and try to apply for a 中途採用 position in Japan, although this also seems very difficult to do from outside Japan.
Considering that I might never be able to move to Japan long-term, I'm currently thinking about going to Japan on a Working Holiday Visa, spend a few months studying at a language school that also offers a program for company internships afterwards, and try out such an internship. Afterwards, I could see myself traveling around, exploring the country and doing some バイト. This should work out financially since I saved up money from my PhD salary, and during my time in Tokyo I could almost certainly stay with my former host family from my time as a high school exchange student. After a year on a WHV, I could then either have miraculously found a job that sponsors a visa and stay long-term, or return to my home country and proceed with the plans outlined above.
The concern I have with this plan leads me to my question: Will the possibility of getting hired via 中途採用 be significantly hindered if I have a year of Working Holiday on my CV? From what I understand, a "straight" CV is valued quite highly in Japan, so do you think that such a "gap year" will be viewed negatively by Japanese HR?
by Particular_Bill1709