Verbs in the past tense as modifiers


Here is a sentence that I encountered in a grammar exercise book.

> 当分はアルバイトをしながら、自分に **向いた** 仕事を探すつもりだ。

I am puzzled with the choice of the past tense 「向いた」. (Unfortunately the
grammar point for the sentence is not about the use of 向いた so I have to find
an explanation elsewhere.)

I have learned (from みんなの日本語中級I) that the past tense of a verb Vた is
equivalent to Vている when:

  1. the verb modifies a noun, and
  2. if the verb refers to an action that took place in the past whose effect remains.

For instance, 眼鏡をかけた人＝眼鏡をかけている人＝a person who wears glasses.

Is 向いた an example of the above usage of the past tense of verbs? It doesn’t
seem so to me. If not, what is the explanation for the choice of the past
tense?




You're right in that both ～ている and ～た can be used for descriptions/to modify
nouns, and the two are pretty interchangeable. In relative clauses, past tense
can be neutralised (see Flaw's comment -> ["太ってる猫" vs
"太った猫"](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/3361/%e5%a4%aa%e3%81%a3%e3%81%a6%e3%82%8b%e7%8c%ab-
vs-%e5%a4%aa%e3%81%a3%e3%81%9f%e7%8c%ab))

Really, there isn't much difference semantically speaking between:

向いている仕事 向いた仕事

I think this is just a case of getting used to the way Japanese phrases things
things/Japanese grammar.

