Job Discussion Forums

[phoenixstorm]

Well, I've been doing the rounds on the dispatch company interviews and now I've learned that basically they are temp agencies and middlemen that place you for a cut of your monthly wage.

I would like to avoid this if possible, but how does one get a job with a boe if you are not in japan? Right now I'm in Seoul until late March when I will return to the States for a month and then be ready to go back to work by May 1st.

Will I have to actually come to Japan on my own to get a boe job. I'm willing to do that, but how will it go when I speak no Japanese? Do I just stroll into the boe offices and deliver my resume with some body language antics?

Any advice, tips, secret passwords or anything else that might get my foot in the door with a BOE would be greatly appreaciated.

I know the school year in Japan starts in April, right? Is it a terrible disadvantage to try and start in May? I just can't bear the thought of not seeing my family before I'm off on another year long trip.

Thank you!

[southofreality]

[markle]

I have to concur with realitysoutherner.

I'm sure that anyone that has cracked it is keeping quiet about it.

And forget about getting a direct hire job, you'll be lucky to get any job if you want to start in May. (It's this kind of attitude- "Would it be OK if I start in May? I wanna go home and see my family" which makes dispatch agencies so attractive to BOE's, they deliver.)

[Glenski]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

I agree with all the others. It's who you know here. You wrote that you basically don't know anybody. DAs can replace you easily (but an advantage is that they can also move you to another school that they work with pretty easily- assuming you have qualifications and experience. The good dispatch companies have you work at a single school every day, not at three or four schools rotating around, so if your dispatch company likes you, then you may be able to move around to another area of Japan after a while to try something new- IF they like you). They can act as a go-between the school / BoE and you. Their job is to take the messy, hard work of actually dealing with the foreigner out of the BoE's or school's hands. Both schools and BoEs like it that way.

Basically, there is no reason for a BoE to hire someone they don't know directly because if they do a direct hire, then they can run into the permanent employee problem (they have to keep you on permanently, because firing someone in Japan is really hard).

In fact, the competition is no longer so much for foreigners to find direct hire jobs with good schools and BoEs, it's to find good dispatch companies- they aren't all awful, but the good ones tend to be small which means again, you have to pretty much know someone to get aboard, or else simply luck out when they do their hiring (but they usually tend to hire only from one or two different locations, and there aren't huge newspaper ads in those locations telling everyone to come look- they often have someone in the location who recommends a few people to be interviewed, and the dispatch chooses from amongst them).

[cornishmuppet]

Quite possibly in a year's time there won't be any direct hire jobs left. I know of eight (including my own) that are getting sold off this summer.

In my experience, they contract you twice a year, primarily in September until the end of the school year in March, then a short one from April through July. Coming in May wouldn't be such a disadvantage if you want to start in September, but you have practically no chance of getting a job for the April term in case you happen to be hanging around somewhere where someone quits abruptly and the BoE can find absolutely NO ONE else with better Japanese skills, a car, and experience with JHS/SHS students, all of which were pretty high requirements when I got mine.

They tend to advertise locally/in Japanese or ask the current teachers for recommendations when they re-hire, but its rare for people to quit anyway because its such a cushy job.

Good luck, but I don't fancy your chances unfortunately.

[phoenixstorm]

Thanks for all the replies. I guess my options are the DAs or going through a conversation school once I get back home. I could technically start in April, but not seeing any of my family for two years straight is just not an option I want to take.

Thanks again!