Rakuten reviews

3.6

71% would recommend to a friend

(3,545 total reviews)
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Hiroshi Mikitani

77% approve of CEO

56% positive business outlook

Rakuten has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 3,545 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Rakuten employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Tecnologia da informação industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

4K reviews
2.0
Sep 29, 2015

Not the worst but certainly not the best

Anonymous employee
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

Used to hire a lot of foreigners, even for the Japanese office - interesting people from all over. Offers training if you are hired as a new grad, so you can pick up some very useful skills if you get assigned to the right department.

Cons

Atmosphere tends to depend on the department and team you are assigned to, but for the most part, very Japanese and top-down despite the global PR. Most senior employees are still struggling with English and not very understanding of where international hires are coming from.

2.0
May 28, 2015

Experience as a foreigner new grad

Anonymous employee
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

- As a new grad, if you get lucky and get placed in a team that operates internationally, there will be opportunities for you to travel abroad. - If you get lucky and get placed in a team/division that isn't predominantly Japanese, then you'll get to meet smart, talented, and like-minded foreigners from all around the world who are open-minded and have multicultural mindsets -- two qualities that are important when working at a global company. Additionally, you'll get to form strong friendship with your foreigner doukis, especially because you go through the same/similar hardships together (esp. ones that arise from language barrier and cultural misunderstanding). Notice I say "if you get lucky."

Cons

Basically, the reverse of the pros listed above. Additionally: - Depending on where you get placed, you may get asked to do a lot of English translations almost every day, even though it's not part of your job. - Low pay. Forget about getting a promotion or a significant pay raise. It'll take many years until you get it, especially because Rakuten is based on a seniority wage system (HR will tell you otherwise, but trust me. That's how it works.)

1.0
Apr 1, 2015

Don't let the recruiters trick you

Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

- Free Lunch - Some very good people - A chance to live in Tokyo There are some excellent people in the company. Lunch is free which definitely helps because your salary will be very low. It's also a great chance to live in Tokyo if you have the skills they are looking for.

Cons

- Management - Culture - Compensation - Work-life balance - Very passive and risk-averse culture that stifles good ideas and people's passion - Revolving door of personnel - HR Department Management is extremely top down and completely uncommunicative. Nothing ever gets done because there is a culture of covering up problems. Data is not used to draw conclusions; it gets used to fit the narrative and agendas that managers want to present. This is true through all layers of management. On top of that, the CEO is probably the most narcissistic person I've ever met in my life. He does not listen to his management team (most of whom are too afraid to go against him anyway), and acts like a spoiled child when things do not turn out how he wants them to. On top of the awful management, you have an HR team that simply isn't doing it's job. They don't deal with anything. Problems like sexual harassment are routinely swept under the rug. When things to get out of hand, the typical way to solve the issue is to blame the victim and transfer that employee to some office out of the way where they can be ignored and forgotten. To compensate employees for having to work under such a dysfunctional company, you are provided a less than average salary and bonus. There are few opportunities for advancement. Pay grade is by and large determined by how long you have managed to tolerate working at the company. The only way up is to stay for years. It's no wonder that turnover in my department was close to 50% during the time I worked at Rakuten.

Viewing 154 - 156 of 3,545 Reviews

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