Job-hunting activities

A funny phenomenon that has been going on now for some months here at Waseda and any other university in Japan are the job-hunting activities of third year students (of whom Eriko is one). A bachelor here takes four years, but already in their third year (or right before becoming fourth-year student, since the college-year starts in April here) students start job-hunting. In the timespan of a few months they go to congresses, information fairs, interviews and read all kinds of books and magazines explaining the characteristics, opportunities, carreer prospects and requirements of the major Japanese companies. And everybody wants to work for a major company, because that assures a stable employment, the most opportunities for promotion and the highest salary. So everybody does his best during the application for the job and the several rounds of interviews that are needed to select a few hundred or a few dozen future employees out of the thousands of applicants. This system is so different from what I was used to in Holland that I'm still surprised by its massiveness. In Holland, companies just place an advertisement in newspapers or magazines if they need new employers, and students who have already graduated from university apply for certain positions in reaction to that advertisement.
I really wonder how Japanese companies can predict during those few months of job-hunting activities what kind of and how many employees they need for the rest of the year. And I also wonder how third year students can by and large decide how the rest of their life will be in a few months. For even if it's less and less prominent, lifetime employment is still very common here. Luckily more and more students want to have more freedom, think about working for the company they enter now for just a few years or about going abroad. However, for those people it might be difficult to find a (good) job afterwards, because once they're graduated they won't have access to the enourmous job-hunting system anymore. That way, it is made sure that most students shift smoothly from university to company, without spending any time doing nothing in between.
I still wonder how I should look at all this. As a liberal, 'nuchter' (sober?) dutch guy it all seems like Japanese society tries very hard to keep control of every stage of life of its citizens. Like it's one more example of how Japanese prefer to do everything in groups, following the well-known paths that everybody follows without taking any risk. The way companies acquire those future graduates makes it look like they still feel responsibility for them, because they offer them stable positions without being sure that they need them in the future.
Luckily I just stand at the side, looking at the whole proces as an outsider. I wouldn't know what I would do if I had to choose between getting a job now or having much less job-opportunities later. In Holland, I can just wait and see.