Experience of entry into the workforce varies across societies (each offering a particular set of social conditions), and across social groups within a society. This article examines how urban Japanese working-class girls made sense of their first permanent full-time employment and conceived the transition to adulthood over the period 1989-92. They experienced the seemingly certain link between high school and permanent full-time jobs, and started working immediately after graduation. For them permanent full-time jobs alone were not sufficient for engendering a sense of adulthood, and the nature of their experiences mattered. In order to feel a sense of growth towards adulthood, they needed to find realistic personal goals (which may seem trivial to others) and the required motivation to pursue them through their experience of work.