Chugen Recruit: Custom Japanese Recruitment Website

Overview

Recruitment sites for Japanese companies carry a very specific expectation: dense information, strict visual hierarchy, and a sense of institutional reliability. Chugen needed a recruit site that would meet that bar while staying fully custom: no off-the-shelf theme, no page builder.

Role

I engineered the WordPress theme from scratch: template architecture in PHP, the complete layout system with Tailwind CSS, and scroll-driven motion with GSAP.

Key decisions

• Custom theme, zero shortcuts. Every template (top page, job listings, job details, entry flow) was built as a bespoke theme, so the client isn’t boxed in by a third-party theme’s assumptions.
• Japanese typographic discipline. Line breaks, character spacing, and vertical rhythm follow Japanese web conventions that I’ve worked with since my time at WaGoMu building sites for the Japanese market.
• Motion with intent. GSAP is used sparingly: entrance choreography on the top page and scroll-linked reveals that guide reading order, tuned to degrade gracefully.

Implementation highlights

• Reusable partials keep job listing templates DRY while letting each posting define its own content blocks through the WordPress admin.
• Tailwind CSS for layout consistency and fast iteration during design reviews with the client.
• Responsive down to small Android viewports, which remain a significant share of Japanese job-seeker traffic.

Outcome

The delivered site presents Chugen as a serious employer: an editorial-feeling top page, clear job architecture, and an entry path that works, all under a fully custom theme the client owns outright.