How to Apply to Nidec (Nihon Densan)

9 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 8 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • Nidec Corporation is the world's leading precision motor maker with approximately USD 17.5 billion in revenue, over 100,000 employees, and 60 to 75 acquired businesses under its umbrella. It is headquartered in Kyoto and trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange as 6594.
  • Applications flow through Workday at nidec.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Nidec for the parent company, with subsidiaries such as Control Techniques, Leroy-Somer, Nidec Motor Corporation, and Nidec-GPM running separate division-level careers pages.
  • The company is in a leadership transition. Founder Shigenobu Nagamori stepped back, CEO Mitsuya Kishida is now chairman, and Nidec is actively rebuilding governance following 2024-2025 accounting issues at Italian, Swiss, Chinese, and inverter business subsidiaries.
  • Work culture is demanding. Employee ratings for work-life balance sit around 3.1 to 3.2 out of 5, and the company's historical philosophy treats long hours and intensity as competitive assets. Candidates who value strict balance should weigh this honestly.
  • Growth is being driven by EV e-axles, AI data center motors, and industrial automation, with major factory investments in Mexico, Serbia, China, and India. Automotive is the top growth area and accounts for roughly 22 percent of revenue.
  • Winning candidates demonstrate measurable results, technical depth in rotating machinery or power electronics, international mobility, and the hunger-and-tenacity mindset that remains core to Nidec's identity.

About Nidec (Nihon Densan)

Nidec Corporation, headquartered in Kyoto, Japan, is the world's leading precision motor manufacturer and one of the most influential industrial companies to emerge from postwar Japan. Founded in 1973 by engineer Shigenobu Nagamori under the name Nihon Densan (literally 'Japan Electric Industry'), the company formally rebranded to Nidec Corporation in April 2023 to unify its global identity. Today Nidec employs roughly 104,000 to 123,000 people worldwide across more than 300 group companies, and generated approximately USD 17.5 billion in revenue for the twelve months ending September 2025. Its stock trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange under ticker 6594 and in the United States as ADR NJDCY. If something spins, Nidec probably makes the motor inside it. The company's product catalog spans hard disk drive spindle motors (a business it dominated for decades and still accounts for roughly 16 percent of revenue), small precision motors for consumer electronics, brushless DC fans, industrial servomotors, machine tools, home appliance compressors, commercial elevators, robotics actuators, and, most importantly for its future, electric vehicle traction motors known as e-axles. Automotive products now represent approximately 22 percent of sales and are the company's primary growth engine. Nidec operates major e-axle plants in China and Europe, opened new automotive motor and inverter factories in Novi Sad, Serbia in 2023, and is investing approximately 100 billion yen (USD 715 million) in a Mexico e-axle facility to serve the North American market. The company has publicly targeted the ability to produce up to 7 million e-axles annually. Nidec's growth has been driven as much by acquisition as by organic engineering. The company has completed between 60 and 75 acquisitions depending on how you count, making it one of the most active industrial acquirers in Japan. Its philosophy is to buy companies with strong technology but weak management, then apply Nidec operational discipline to turn them profitable. Major deals include Sankyo Seiki (now Nidec Sankyo) in 2003, Emerson's motors and drives business, Leroy-Somer and Control Techniques, the Whirlpool-Embraco compressor business (USD 1.1 billion in 2018), and the 2023 unsolicited takeover of Takisawa Machine Tool, which was a landmark hostile bid in Japanese corporate history. Nidec closed its acquisition of Chinese scroll compressor maker Xecom in mid-2025. The company has been in a period of significant leadership transition. Founder Shigenobu Nagamori stepped down as chairman emeritus, and CEO Mitsuya Kishida took the chairman role following the disclosure of accounting issues at subsidiaries in Italy, Switzerland, China, and within the car inverter business, which surfaced after a September 2024 incident at a Chinese unit. Nagamori resigned from the board in December 2025 to support internal governance reform. For candidates, this means Nidec is actively rebuilding its governance and compliance culture while simultaneously pursuing aggressive expansion in EV powertrains, AI data center motors, and industrial automation. It is a company in transition, which creates both opportunity and uncertainty.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Go to the official Nidec Workday portal at nidec

    Go to the official Nidec Workday portal at nidec.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Nidec. This is the canonical global careers system for the Nidec parent company and most English-language roles. Subsidiary brands like Control Techniques, Leroy-Somer, Nidec Motor Corporation (US), Nidec-GPM, and Nidec Minster run their own regional job boards under acim.nidec.com or brand-specific domains, so check the division that matches your target role.

  2. 2
    Create a Workday candidate account using a permanent personal email address, not

    Create a Workday candidate account using a permanent personal email address, not a work address. Workday retains your profile across every Nidec group company that uses the same tenant, so your single profile can power multiple applications over time. Complete every profile field, including a full work history, education, skills list, and language proficiencies, because Workday filters rely on structured data rather than resume parsing alone.

  3. 3
    Upload a resume in English (for global or non-Japan roles) or Japanese rirekisho

    Upload a resume in English (for global or non-Japan roles) or Japanese rirekisho and shokumu keirekisho format (for Japan-based roles). For Japan positions, be prepared to submit both documents. For engineering roles, a portfolio of patents, publications, or technical project descriptions significantly strengthens the application.

  4. 4
    Complete role-specific screening questions carefully

    Complete role-specific screening questions carefully. Nidec Workday postings commonly include questions about willingness to travel internationally, willingness to relocate to Kyoto or specific plant locations, language proficiency (Japanese, English, Mandarin, German are most common), and prior experience with motor design, power electronics, or specific CAD and simulation tools.

  5. 5
    Expect an initial recruiter screen within one to three weeks of applying

    Expect an initial recruiter screen within one to three weeks of applying. Recruiters typically confirm eligibility, compensation expectations, visa status for cross-border roles, and interest in the specific business unit. International candidates should be prepared to discuss relocation logistics openly.

  6. 6
    Complete technical and behavioral interview rounds

    Complete technical and behavioral interview rounds. Engineering and R&D roles typically involve two to four interview rounds including a technical deep dive with the hiring team, a cross-functional panel, and a senior leadership conversation. Manufacturing and operations roles may include a site visit and shop floor interview.

  7. 7
    Receive an offer and complete background verification

    Receive an offer and complete background verification. Offers are typically contingent on reference checks, education verification, and, for executive or sensitive roles, conflicts of interest disclosures. For cross-border hires, immigration processing adds four to twelve weeks depending on destination country.

Resume Tips for Nidec (Nihon Densan)

recommended

Lead with measurable engineering or operational impact

Lead with measurable engineering or operational impact. Nidec is a results-oriented company and its leadership has historically demanded 20 percent year-over-year growth from business units. Translate your work into numbers: yield improvements, cost-down percentages, lead-time reductions, horsepower or efficiency gains, motor torque density improvements, or defect rate reductions. Vague language like 'supported manufacturing' will not survive a recruiter screen.

recommended

Emphasize rotating machinery, power electronics, or precision motion expertise i

Emphasize rotating machinery, power electronics, or precision motion expertise if you have it. Terms like brushless DC motor, permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM), induction motor, servo drive, inverter, IGBT, SiC, magnetic circuit design, rotor dynamics, and FEA simulation all increase match scores in Workday keyword searches for engineering roles.

recommended

For EV and automotive positions, call out e-axle, traction motor, automotive OEM

For EV and automotive positions, call out e-axle, traction motor, automotive OEM program experience, IATF 16949, ISO 26262 functional safety, APQP, and PPAP explicitly. Nidec is competing for global EV platform wins and recruiters prioritize candidates who have shipped automotive-grade parts at scale.

recommended

Include language proficiency clearly

Include language proficiency clearly. List Japanese, English, Mandarin, Korean, German, or any other languages with a standard scale such as CEFR level, JLPT level for Japanese, or HSK level for Mandarin. Nidec is genuinely multinational and language skills are a real differentiator, not filler.

recommended

Highlight acquisition integration, cross-cultural leadership, or turnaround expe

Highlight acquisition integration, cross-cultural leadership, or turnaround experience for senior roles. Nidec's M&A-driven growth model means leaders who can stabilize acquired businesses, harmonize operations across regions, and work across Japanese, Chinese, European, and American business cultures are highly valuable.

recommended

Keep the document to one or two pages for individual contributor roles and no mo

Keep the document to one or two pages for individual contributor roles and no more than three pages for senior leadership. Use a single-column, ATS-safe layout with standard section headings. Nidec's Workday parser handles standard formats cleanly but fails on text inside images, complex tables, or heavily designed layouts.

recommended

Tailor the summary or objective line to the specific business unit

Tailor the summary or objective line to the specific business unit. A Machine Tool Division application should emphasize precision manufacturing experience, while an Appliance, Commercial and Industrial Motors role should focus on high-volume motor production or HVAC expertise. Nidec's divisions have distinct cultures and recruiters notice when an applicant has clearly read the job description.

recommended

Include professional certifications relevant to the discipline: Six Sigma Black

Include professional certifications relevant to the discipline: Six Sigma Black Belt, PMP, Professional Engineer (PE), or region-specific equivalents. Nidec values formal credentials, particularly for manufacturing, quality, and project leadership roles.

ATS System: ATS

Nidec Corporation uses Workday as its primary applicant tracking system, hosted at nidec.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Nidec for the parent company and most global English-language roles. The Workday tenant is shared across several Nidec group companies, which means a single candidate profile can be reused across multiple applications. However, Nidec is a federated organization: many subsidiaries and regional brands run their own careers infrastructure. Nidec Motor Corporation in the United States, Control Techniques, Leroy-Somer, Nidec-GPM in Germany, Nidec Minster, Nidec Drive Technology, and KB Electronics each maintain division-specific job listings and may route applications through separate systems. The acim.nidec.com domain hosts the Appliance, Commercial and Industrial Motors group. Because of this fragmentation, a candidate should identify the specific Nidec entity that owns the target role and apply through that entity's portal rather than assuming one profile covers everything. When applying through Workday, upload a clean PDF or DOCX resume, complete every structured field in the candidate profile (Workday prioritizes structured data for search and filtering), and include keywords from the job description verbatim in your profile skills and work history narratives. Avoid headers and footers, text inside images, multi-column layouts with text boxes, and unusual fonts, all of which degrade Workday parsing accuracy.

Interview Culture

Be honest with yourself before applying: Nidec has a global reputation for a demanding work culture, and founder Shigenobu Nagamori built the company on an explicit philosophy that long hours and intensity are competitive weapons. Glassdoor ratings from Japan-based employees cluster around 3.1 to 3.2 out of 5 for work-life balance, culture and values, and career opportunities, which is below the average for major Japanese industrial firms. Employees commonly describe the environment as 'results-oriented' and cite expectations of 20 percent year-over-year growth at the business-unit level. Nagamori himself publicly argued for Japanese labor deregulation and was known for unconventional hiring rituals including loud-voice competitions and making new Kyoto headquarters hires clean toilets. The company has more recently acknowledged that reliance on long hours is not sustainable and has made public moves to reduce overtime, but the cultural DNA remains high-intensity and low-ceremony. Interview rounds reflect this. Expect pointed, specific questions about your ownership of measurable outcomes, how you handled setbacks, how you operated under resource constraints, and how you would drive performance if given an underperforming team or business. Behavioral interviews are less polished and more direct than at many Western firms: interviewers may challenge claims, push back on numbers, and ask you to defend engineering decisions under pressure. For engineering roles, technical interviews commonly include whiteboard problem-solving on motor physics, control systems, thermal management, or manufacturing yield analysis. For Japan-based roles, interviews are frequently conducted in Japanese and English and may include a formal written assessment. Cultural fit signals that resonate at Nidec include demonstrated passion for the work (Nagamori's stated hierarchy placed passion, enthusiasm, and tenacity above raw talent), willingness to relocate or travel, comfort with hierarchy and rapid decision-making from senior leaders, and a clear track record of delivering results rather than managing process. Candidates who thrive are typically people who want an intense, high-accountability environment with meaningful scope early. Candidates who value strict work-life balance, consensus-heavy decision-making, or a highly structured career ladder may find Nidec a poor fit and should weigh that honestly.

What Nidec (Nihon Densan) Looks For

  • Demonstrable hunger and tenacity. The Nagamori philosophy of passion, enthusiasm, and tenacity remains central to how Nidec evaluates candidates, especially in Japan. Stories of persistence through difficult technical or business challenges carry real weight.
  • Engineering depth in rotating machinery, power electronics, control systems, or precision manufacturing. Nidec is fundamentally a deep-tech motor company, and hiring managers reward candidates who can discuss magnetic design, drive control, or precision mechanics with fluency.
  • Measurable results and numerate thinking. Be ready to quantify every significant claim on your resume. Nidec leaders are known for probing numbers in interviews and dislike vague contribution language.
  • International mobility and cross-cultural adaptability. Nidec operates across Japan, China, Southeast Asia, Europe, North America, and Mexico. Candidates open to international assignments, or who have already worked across multiple regions, stand out.
  • Integration and turnaround experience for senior roles. Given the acquisition-heavy growth model, leaders who have stabilized acquired businesses, harmonized cross-border operations, or led post-merger integration are especially attractive.
  • Customer and OEM relationship experience for automotive, appliance, and data center segments. Nidec competes directly for EV platform wins, hyperscaler cooling contracts, and major appliance OEM programs, and it values people who have navigated these procurement processes.
  • Willingness to operate in ambiguity and governance rebuild. Following the 2024-2025 accounting disclosures, Nidec is actively strengthening internal controls. Candidates with compliance, audit, or financial controls backgrounds who also understand manufacturing environments are in demand.
  • Language proficiency in combinations of Japanese, English, Mandarin, or German. Nidec's operating rhythm is genuinely multilingual, and fluent cross-language communicators have a practical advantage.

Frequently Asked Questions

What applicant tracking system does Nidec use?
Nidec Corporation uses Workday, hosted at nidec.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Nidec for the parent company and most global English-language roles. Several subsidiaries including Control Techniques, Leroy-Somer, Nidec Motor Corporation, Nidec-GPM, and Nidec Minster maintain their own division-specific careers pages and may use different systems. Identify the specific Nidec entity that owns your target role before applying.
Is Nidec a good company to work for?
It depends on what you want. Nidec offers significant scope, technical challenge, global exposure, and strong compensation for top performers. However, employee ratings on Glassdoor and Indeed for work-life balance cluster around 3.1 to 3.2 out of 5, below the average for major Japanese industrial firms. The company has historically relied on long hours and aggressive growth targets. It is a strong fit for ambitious, results-driven people and a weaker fit for those prioritizing structured work-life balance.
Does Nidec hire international candidates?
Yes. Nidec is a genuinely global company with approximately 104,000 to 123,000 employees across more than 300 group companies in Japan, China, Southeast Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Mexico. It actively hires international candidates both into Japan and into regional operations, and it invests in cross-border mobility. Language skills in Japanese, English, Mandarin, or German are significant advantages.
What is the difference between Nidec and Nihon Densan?
They are the same company. Nihon Densan was the original Japanese name, literally meaning 'Japan Electric Industry,' used from the company's founding in 1973. The company formally rebranded globally to Nidec Corporation in April 2023 to unify its identity across international markets. Legacy documents, regulatory filings, and older Japanese-language sources may still use Nihon Densan.
Who is the CEO of Nidec in 2026?
Mitsuya Kishida is President and CEO, and as of late 2025 also serves as Chairman following the resignation of founder Shigenobu Nagamori. Nagamori, who founded the company in 1973, stepped back from operational leadership following disclosures of accounting issues at several overseas subsidiaries and the car inverter business, and resigned from the board in December 2025.
What are Nidec's main business segments?
Nidec operates across several major segments: small precision motors (including hard disk drive spindle motors, roughly 16 percent of sales), automotive products including EV e-axles (roughly 22 percent of sales), appliance/commercial/industrial motors, machine tools, industrial automation and robotics, and brushless DC fans and cooling. Growth investment is concentrated in EV traction motors and motors for AI data centers.
Where is Nidec headquartered?
Nidec Corporation is headquartered at 338 Kuze Tonoshiro-cho, Minami-ku, Kyoto 601-8205, Japan. The company trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange under ticker 6594 and in the United States as ADR NJDCY. It operates major R&D, manufacturing, and sales facilities across Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
How long does the Nidec interview process take?
The full process typically runs four to eight weeks from application to offer for individual contributor roles, and eight to twelve weeks for senior or cross-border roles. Expect a recruiter screen in the first one to three weeks, followed by two to four interview rounds with the hiring team, a cross-functional panel, and leadership. Cross-border hires add additional time for visa processing and background checks.
Does Nidec require Japanese language skills?
For roles based in Japan, particularly in Kyoto headquarters or domestic plants, conversational to business-level Japanese is typically expected. JLPT N2 or higher is a common bar for engineering and corporate roles, with N1 preferred for senior positions. For roles outside Japan, English is the working language and Japanese is a plus rather than a requirement. Global functions often require multilingual teams, so Mandarin, German, or Korean can also be significant advantages.
What should I know about Nidec's recent accounting issues?
In late 2024 and throughout 2025, Nidec disclosed accounting irregularities at subsidiaries in Italy, Switzerland, and China, and within its car inverter business. The disclosures triggered internal investigations, external audits, and governance reform. Founder Shigenobu Nagamori resigned from the board in December 2025 to support the reform process. For candidates, this means Nidec is actively hiring in compliance, internal audit, and financial controls, and that all new hires should expect a stronger emphasis on governance training and compliance processes than in prior years.

Open Positions

Nidec (Nihon Densan) currently has 8 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 8 open positions at Nidec (Nihon Densan)

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Sources

  1. Nidec Corporation Company Profile — Nidec Corporation
  2. Nidec - Wikipedia — Wikipedia
  3. Nidec Chairman Quits Board After Spate of Accounting Issues — The Japan Times
  4. Nidec founder Shigenobu Nagamori resigns as chairman emeritus — Nikkei Asia
  5. Ambition and ego: Inside Nagamori's Nidec — The Japan Times
  6. M&A History — Nidec Corporation
  7. Nidec To Build Large EV E-Axle Factory In Mexico — InsideEVs
  8. Opening Ceremony for New Factories in Serbia — Nidec Corporation
  9. Nidec Revenue 2012-2025 — MacroTrends
  10. Nidec Japan Reviews — Glassdoor