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Davidos
Joined: 26 Oct 2005
Posts: 7
Location: Auckland
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 Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 10:48 am Post subject: Getting work in Japan |
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Could anyone help me with advice on getting a job in Japan if you are going there to visit and have the time to look into getting a job there teaching English?
I would be most grateful
Merry christmas Joyeux Noel
Davidos |
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PAULH
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 4672
Location: Western Japan
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| Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 11:27 am Post subject: Re: Getting work in Japan |
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| Davidos wrote: |
Could anyone help me with advice on getting a job in Japan if you are going there to visit and have the time to look into getting a job there teaching English?
I would be most grateful
Merry christmas Joyeux Noel
Davidos |
Ask a general question and you will get a general answer.
Do you have a degree, when do you plan on coming and where do you plan to look for work?
What employers look for is a person with:
a valid work visa or can readily change from a tourist visa.
resident in Japan or has a contact address.
meets their job requirements (see the postings on the various job boards)
There are busy and quiet periods for hunting for jobs. Dec-Jan is one of the worst times to look. Feb-March is said to be best for job-hunting.
One word of advice: jobs are plenty in the ads but starting pay is low and you have a lot of competition. Getting jobs is about doing the numbers, knocking on doors and being persistent. I cant give you specific advice as it depends on what you are after. Foreigners with a BA are a dime a dozen and are chasing after the same scraps. Make sure you have enough money to last at least 2 months without a paycheck.
Dont be too fussy about what you want as there are plenty of people to take your place. I would suggest you read the contract as there are a lot of shady companies, especially among the dispatch companies. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, so be careful and dont jump at the first thing that moves. |
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Davidos
Joined: 26 Oct 2005
Posts: 7
Location: Auckland
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| Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 2:19 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks Paul . Yes it was general but you gave me some good things to reflect on. Ok. What if you havent got a degree, are somewhat mature
but have a lot of tutoring experience, an adult teaching qualification, a needs assessment q, a celta, cultural awareness/sensitivity, speak another
three languages and know some japanese? I like the dime a dozen reference.
oh, I failed my language degree a few years ago. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2005 12:23 am Post subject: |
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No degree means no work visa unless you have 3 or more years of work experience. Private tutoring doesn't count.
What is your nationality? If you are Canadian, Australian, British, New Zealander, Korean, German, or French, you might qualify for a working holiday visa.
http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/w_holiday/index.html
If you don't, you are out of luck unless you marry someone who has a work visa here (then you can get a dependent visa and work PT), or unless you marry a Japanese (for the spouse visa, which permits FT work), or enroll in a Japanese school (student visa, PT work), or have a craftsman sponsor you to study under him (cultural visa, PT work). In all of these situations, you are not guaranteed any work at all. Employers still place a high value on having a degree, so if they want you to have it, you will be out of luck. Most want it. |
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PAULH
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 4672
Location: Western Japan
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| Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2005 3:30 pm Post subject: |
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What Glenski is saying in a roundabout way is that immigration here requires you have a degree so they can process your work visa. With no degree you need to get another visa that permits you to work in Japan, hence the number of alternatives. You can work in Japan without a degree but you need to jump through hoops to qualify for different types of visa- not all of them require degrees (spouse dependent etc)
You are basically sunk if you have no degree and can't get a visa to work here. |
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Davidos
Joined: 26 Oct 2005
Posts: 7
Location: Auckland
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| Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2005 9:18 am Post subject: |
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Thanks very much. I can get a spousal visa. My wife is japanese.
Could i then get work teaching english(see my other reply for what i've done)?
Thanks for the help. |
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PAULH
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 4672
Location: Western Japan
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| Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2005 11:14 am Post subject: |
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| Davidos wrote: |
Thanks very much. I can get a spousal visa. My wife is japanese.
Could i then get work teaching english(see my other reply for what i've done)?
Thanks for the help. |
David,
I dont have a crystal ball and even if I did no one here will guarantee you a job just because you have a spouse visa. Even people come here with degrees and still can not find work. All the degree does is get you an interview and allow you to work in this country by immigration. the rest is up to you.
Yes, you could get work if you have all the balls lined up in a row, the moons are aligned and you simply keep at sending out CVs until you get some nibbles. As I mentioned in another post, getting jobs here is a numbers game, and if I can use an analogy its like shucking 100 oysters to find the one with a pearl. If you dont open the oysters one by one you wont get nearer to your goal so you just have to keep shucking until you get the pearl you seek (your job).
Here are some questions you need to ask yourself if you want to look for work here:
What time of year are you coming to japan?
How long can you support yourself without any income (you should have 2-3 months salary set aside)
What part of the country do you want to work? Do you just want to throw a dart at a map of Japan and hope you find something? where does your wife want to live? (Often J-wives have lots of say in where you can start looking for jobs as she may not want to live in the countryside or city as the case may be).
what kind of job do you want? (eikaiwa, ALT, elementary school? semongakkou? High school? companies?)
will you look for a job after arriving in Japan or from new Zealand?
What does your CV look like? Are you overqualified for the jobs you are applying for?
Are you teachable? (with a CELTA you may not like being told to teach the NOVA way or Berlitz way for example). Are you open to doing things diffferently than you have learnt in your CELTA?
Do you need accomodation for you and your wife?
Will the employer hire you without a degree (you have a spouse visa but thats no guarantee of an interview)
Is there any bottom line figure you wont go when looking for work? What kind of salary figure are you looking for in a full time job?
Are you looking for part time or full time work?
So as you can see there are a lot of things to consider and you wont find all of these in one position. You really just have to apply for jobs, see what the offer, look at the terms and conditions they offer you and see whether its within your comfort level or within your job criteria.
Two years ago I applied for a teaching position and applied to fifty schools. out of those I got 45 no's, a couple of maybes and one or two yeses. You need one or two in reserve in case one doesnt pan out or they hire someone else. You have to treat job hunting like a job, and I wont simply say you will get a job just because you have a spouse visa.
Like anything it DEPENDS. it depends on you, what you are looking for and how hard you look, how long your bank balance holds out and how fussy you are about what you will and wont do.
This is probably more of an answer than you were expecting, but I have at least given you some more things to think about. getting jobs here is very hard now: lots more people looking, salaries are low and getting lower. Lots of junk around and people willing to work for $NZ 12-15 an hour. part time dispatch company work with poor working conditions.
Yes you can get a job if you have a valid visa you are in Japan and you are out there prospecting. Sit at home and wait for the phone to ring and you will be waiting a long time. Dont expect that you are 'owed' a job or there are any guarantees. No one will promise you a job in this day and age and you have to prospect for them. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2005 1:49 pm Post subject: |
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Heed what Paul wrote. He merely beat me to the punch. All of those rhetorical questions need to be answered first. Would you blindly move to the country you are living in now and just hope that something comes up? Probably not.
| Quote: |
have a lot of tutoring experience, an adult teaching qualification, a needs assessment q, a celta, cultural awareness/sensitivity, speak another
three languages and know some japanese? |
Tutoring might help. Depends on the employer and the type of tutoring you did, plus how you describe it in the resume and cover letter.
An adult teaching qualification. What is that? Can you give it a name like the John Q. Public Association for TESOL? Licenses are big in Japan, but they can also bite you in the rear. For one thing, since you don't have a degree, you are only going to be able to look for eikaiwa work and private lessons. The former don't require more than a degree or proper visa most of the time, so any additional certification is usually just fluff to them (although SOME like to post such things as advertising material about their teachers to attract more students). Certification won't get you a higher paycheck in 99% of cases, either. And, if you have too many things like those certifications, eikaiwas will consider you over qualified. Even one might cause them to pause because they might be afraid you will use that background to change their format.
Cultural awareness/sensitivity. Places like JET programme want people who have lived in Japan for a limited time. Places like some eikaiwas want them even greener, for various reasons. One of their big criteria seems to be someone they can mold into their own image, yet a person who won't freak out and lose it due to culture shock, so if you can somehow define this "cultural awareness/sensitivity" in a way that helps you with work situations (instead of just hanging out with your wife's friends and family here), you might be one step ahead of some people. Ask yourself when was the last time you lived in Japan, then consider that you will likely be competing against people who are currently here and may have been here continuously for years.
Speaking other languages might be a plus only if the employer thinks it gives you some notion of how students learn languages, or if you can teach them (and if they want you to). Knowing "some Japanese" is also relative. You won't be expected to use it in the classroom (although for very low level learners this might have to be sneaked in), but certainly it will help in your daily life. Ask your wife (sensitively) just how often foreigners are truly accepted in Japan, especially after they become fluent in Japanese. The answer may surprise you. It's never. And, Japanese often change their attitude around you after they discover that you can speak their "secret code" which no foreigner is supposed to know how to speak. Sounds sarcastic, I know, but it's true in many cases. |
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