Graduates of vocational high schools (SMK) in Indonesia are formally prepared for immediate employment, yet they persistently record the highest open unemployment rate among all levels of education, while international labour markets such as Japan continue to face severe workforce shortages. A central obstacle is not merely technical skill, but limited access to credible information about global career pathways, language requirements, and cross-cultural work expectations. This community service programme aimed to improve the global career readiness of students at SMK Bima Sakti, Kedung Waringin, Bekasi Regency, through a structured socialization of overseas job opportunities and internship programmes to Japan. The activity was carried out on Wednesday, 9 September 2026, from 09.00 to 12.00 WIB, and was attended by 64 students of grades XI and XII from the study programmes of Motorcycle Engineering and Computer and Network Engineering. The method combined needs identification, coordination with school partners, expository delivery by a practitioner resource person, participatory discussion, and an evaluation of participants' understanding using a pre-test and post-test instrument. The evaluation results show an increase in participants’ average understanding score from 53.9 in the pre-test to 81.7 in the post-test (a gain of 27.8 points). The largest gain was in the work ethic and Japanese workplace culture aspect (+29.1 points), followed by the Japanese language proficiency standard aspect (+28.6 points). The programme demonstrates that informational intervention is a low-cost yet strategic instrument for narrowing the global career information gap among vocational students and should be institutionalized within school career guidance services.
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