---
title: "Eigyo Is Not One Job: What a Japanese Sales Title Hides"
description: Japan's job classification splits sales (eigyo) into 12 product categories and says nothing on how people sell. Ask where a candidate's customers came from.
image: https://nobusato.jp/hubfs/covers-2026-10/eigyo-is-not-one-job-cover-en-2026-10.png
---

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en?hsLang=en)

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Launching in Japan

In this article

1. [How do Japan's statistics define sales?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/eigyo-is-not-one-job#s1)
2. [Same title, how different can the job be?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/eigyo-is-not-one-job#s2)
3. [The title is often assigned, and so are the customers](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/eigyo-is-not-one-job#s3)
4. [What should an employer ask?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/eigyo-is-not-one-job#s4)

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# Eigyo Is Not One Job: What a Japanese Sales Title Hides

MHLW job classification and job tag

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)7 min read

Contents4

1. [How do Japan's statistics define sales?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/eigyo-is-not-one-job#s1)
2. [Same title, how different can the job be?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/eigyo-is-not-one-job#s2)
3. [The title is often assigned, and so are the customers](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/eigyo-is-not-one-job#s3)
4. [What should an employer ask?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/eigyo-is-not-one-job#s4)

"Sales" on a Japanese resume tells you what someone sold. It says almost nothing about how they sold it. The word is eigyo (営業), and overseas head offices read it as "a person who can go out and win new customers." Japan's official occupational classification, the one public employment offices use, splits eigyo into 12 categories, and every one of them is a product: food, pharmaceuticals, machinery, insurance, advertising. Whether the person hunted for new accounts or looked after existing ones appears nowhere in the table.

## How do Japan's statistics define sales?

By product. In the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's occupational classification (2022 revision), the major group "sales and eigyo occupations" contains a group called "eigyo occupations" with twelve sub-categories: food and beverages, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, machinery and equipment, automobiles, telecom and information systems, finance and insurance, real estate, advertising, construction, printing, and "other."

One of those twelve, machinery and equipment, lists around thirty example job titles. Selling watches and taking orders for railway cars sit in the same box.

The borders are worth a look, because the words on a resume and the words in the table often disagree. A sales assistant who handles orders (eigyo jimu) is classified under clerical work. So is someone who books appointments by phone. People who sell in a shop are "sales staff," a different group. Real estate brokers and insurance agents are filed under "occupations similar to sales."

The single job-openings ratio published for "eigyo" adds all twelve together. I covered how to read it in [Japan's job-to-applicant ratio only makes sense by occupation](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-job-openings-ratio-by-occupation?hsLang=en). A product-based table is fine for statistics. For an employer it misses the point, which is how this person sells.

## Same title, how different can the job be?

It differs on three axes: whose product, which customer, and how the customer is found. The ministry's job information site, job tag, has a page on eigyo work that uses exactly these cuts.

Whose product. A manufacturer's salesperson sells what the company makes. An agency salesperson sells another company's product for a commission, and the contract is between the supplier and the customer. A trading company salesperson buys and resells, and carries inventory.

A detour, because it trips people up. The Japanese term for agency sales has two meanings. On job tag it means someone inside an agency selling other companies' products. In manufacturers' job postings, as far as I've seen, it often means the manufacturer's own person who manages and supports agencies. One term, both sides of the table.

Which customer. Corporate sales means large amounts and slow decisions, because the buyer has to consult internally. Consumer sales is usually judged on contracts closed and revenue.

How the customer is found. New business development means looking for people who have never bought, and being turned down most of the time. Route sales means visiting existing accounts on a schedule, hearing what they need and proposing. Inbound sales answers people who asked first. Door-to-door sales visits without an appointment.

Three kinds, two kinds, four kinds. Multiply and you get twenty-four combinations. That is arithmetic and reality is messier, but it makes the point. Two people with "eigyo" on their resumes may have done jobs that barely overlap.

One kind isn't in the classification at all: inside sales, done by phone and video call. In HubSpot Japan's October 2025 survey of 1,545 people on the selling side (executives, heads of corporate sales teams and corporate sales reps), 39.5% said their company had introduced inside sales and 51.2% knew the term.

The title is always sales, and a new Japan entity needs the left column

Terms for sales method (new business, route, inbound, door-to-door) and employer type (manufacturer, agency, trading company) follow the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's job tag page on eigyo work. The four-way split is the author's own arrangement and does not exist in official statistics

Across: new customers (left) or existing ones (right)　Down: selling directly (top) or through agencies (bottom)

New business

Finds customers and closes them personally. Door-to-door and inbound both belong here. Rejection is normal.

Route sales

Visits existing accounts on a schedule, listens and proposes. The accounts already do business with the company.

Signing agencies

Finds and signs agencies and trading companies willing to sell your product. The counterpart is the channel. The measure is how many signed and how many actually sell.

Supporting agencies

The manufacturer's person in charge of agencies, also called partner sales. Training, joint visits and terms, so that the agency sells.

Decide which box you need first. Then read the word "sales" on the resume.

Figure 1. Japan's official occupational classification splits eigyo (sales) into twelve sub-categories by product. Sorted by how the selling is done, new or existing customers and direct or through agencies, the same title covers four different jobs.

## The title is often assigned, and so are the customers

Japanese sales careers are hard to read because neither one was necessarily earned by the person.

Start with the title. In a November 2024 survey, HubSpot Japan asked sales managers and sales reps why they had gone into sales (multiple answers allowed; the release doesn't give the number of respondents for this question). The top answer was "it looked rewarding," at 26.7%. The second was "I didn't ask for it, the company assigned me," at 24.5%. Among people who started in sales in 2020 or later, the assigned answer came first at 32.7%.

About one in four said they were placed there. Japanese companies often hire graduates without a fixed role and allocate them afterward, and the sales department takes a lot of them. That explanation is mine. The survey gives only the percentages.

Then the customers. A route salesperson at a large company usually works a list inherited from a predecessor, and the customers mostly trust the company's name. That is my impression. The results can be excellent and the skill is real. But the skill was built under one condition: the customers were already there. In my [four layers](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/method-four-layers?hsLang=en), the company name and the account list sit in the context layer. They belong to the environment and stay behind when the person leaves.

A new entity has no name and no list. Put someone from the right column into the left column and they won't slack off. I think they just won't know whom to call first. My impression is that the right column is the larger share of sales resumes in Japan. It is an impression. I have no number for it.

## What should an employer ask?

Ask where the customers came from. That one question separates more than "how many years in sales" ever will.

Of the accounts you handled, how many did you open, how many did you inherit, and how many came to you? How large was a typical deal, and how long from first meeting to contract? Did you sign directly or through an agency? Is the number on the resume yours or the team's?

The job posting needs the same treatment. "Three or more years of sales experience" fits everyone in all four boxes. Write the box instead: new or existing customers, direct or through agencies, rough deal size. Which box you need was mostly settled when you set your price, as I argued in [Your Price Decides What Kind of Sales Team You Need](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/pricing-decides-the-sales-team?hsLang=en). The bottom row needs a different person again, one who understands [why your distributor isn't selling your product](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/why-your-distributor-isnt-selling?hsLang=en).

Field or remote shouldn't be decided on instinct either. In HubSpot Japan's October 2025 survey, 52.3% of sellers preferred visiting in person. Among the 515 buyers, 40.4% preferred visits, 26.8% preferred no visits and 32.8% didn't mind. Nearly six in ten buyers aren't asking you to show up.

Sources (as of November 2026)

- [Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Occupational Classification (2022 revision), major group 07 "sales and eigyo occupations" (group 048, twelve sub-categories and example titles; in Japanese)](https://www.hellowork.mhlw.go.jp/info/mhlw_job_dictionary_04.html)
- [Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Occupational Classification (2022 revision), major group 06 "clerical occupations" (040-01 sales clerks, 036-02 telephone appointment setters; in Japanese)](https://www.hellowork.mhlw.go.jp/info/mhlw_job_dictionary_03.html)
- [Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, job tag, "Eigyo work" (in Japanese)](https://shigoto.mhlw.go.jp/User/SaleOccupations)
- [HubSpot Japan, Survey on Sales in Japan 2025 (released February 18, 2025; fieldwork November 14 to 15, 2024; in Japanese)](https://www.hubspot.jp/hubfs/Press%20Release_HubSpot_20250218_State_of_Sales.pdf)
- [HubSpot Japan, Survey on Sales in Japan 2026, data book (fieldwork October 30 to 31, 2025; 1,545 sellers and 515 buyers; in Japanese)](https://offers.hubspot.jp/hubfs/jp-offer/hubspot-sales-research-2026/hubspot-sales-research-2026.pdf)

---

Author

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)

Launching in Japan, starting with people and systems. I write about building organizations, sales teams and technology organizations in Japan, in English, Japanese and Chinese.

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## More in this column

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