Job Discussion Forums

[Jiangling]

FUNDAMENTALLY - I'm American and looking for something I can do to make money in/near Kobe while being there for a year at most.

Now, details:

My fiance and I are both taking a year off after graduating from college this May. We are currently in America and want to go to Japan for a while, but need something to do to support ourselves at least to an extent because Japan is expensive. I've had an interest in having a job in Japan teaching English for a long time now, and I am at a point in my life where I want to go do that. My fiance is specializing in Chinese history and culture and wants to go back and go to grad school the year after next, so we're trying to work out some sort of compromise.

Kobe is a good location because it has a significant Chinatown and some things that qualify as studiable from his point of view (so when the grad schools ask him what he's been doing in the past year, he can say something more productive for his subject than 'hanging around Japan'), and it works well because it's close to Kyoto, which we both love.

I've been looking around for things in the area. I thought ECC looked pretty appealing except for the fact that it would tie me in for longer than a year, which is something I can't really do without destroying my fiance's plans.

As it stands, the earliest I would be able to go to Japan is probably mid-August, so I'm hoping to find something workable pretty soon so I can get the whole visa processing thing started.

I'm not 100% tied to teaching English, either, but I have no idea what else I could possibly do. I speak some Japanese, but while I can generally carry on a conversation, it is far from being fluent.

Does anybody know of anything that might fit what I need here? Thanks so much.

[Glenski]

Unless you speak / read / write Japanese fairly well, teaching a language is probably the best possible route, as other types of work usually require the Japanese skill.

You just missed the peak hiring time (March), so look hard. August is a pretty dead time of year for hiring, even for eikaiwa like ECC.

Since you two are not married yet, you are both going to need a visa to stay longer than 90 days. If this proves unwieldly, then get married, so the person with the visa (even a student visa) can sponsor the other for a dependent visa (which allows PT work under special permission, as does the student visa).

[Jiangling]

With regards to language skills, that's what I figured, I just thought I'd throw it out there in case I'd missed something.

Thanks for the information about the visas. That's useful to know.

As for jobs, where do you suggest I look? I've looked around a lot of the recruiting sites (recruit.net, gaijinpot, etc) and I'm finding very little in terms of anything that offers a contract for less than a year. Do you have any suggestions?

[Glenski]

You are finding few because there are few. Keep looking.

The FAQ has more listings than you cited. PM me for more of a list, too.