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lapat008
Joined: 28 Mar 2010
Posts: 5
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 Posted: Wed May 05, 2010 2:52 am Post subject: How many rejections? |
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Hey all,
I have had interviews with Peppy Kids Club and Aeon. I didn't get offers from either one. I would love to know why I didn't make it despite the feeling that the interview went well. and of course Aeon states that they don't disclose that type of information..
How hard IS IT to get a teaching job in Japan?
Was it me, or is it simply b/c there are no vacancies available?
I have my last interview with Amity this week. Can someone please give me tips on how to make a great impression and increase my chances??
For those that have been successful, how 'energetic and friendly' were you??
I know it's May already, what are the best options to get a teaching position in Japan?
Thanks in advance. |
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Rakis
Joined: 20 Sep 2009
Posts: 32
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| Posted: Wed May 05, 2010 4:04 am Post subject: |
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I got several rejections before I got finally got accepted. I think I had been looking for at least 5 months before I got something. Probably persistence and constant improvement of my resume and interview skills helped me get what I wanted near the end.
I interviewed with AEON also. Part of what probably killed my interview with AEON was being unprepared for their test and my shoddy excuse for a lesson plan. Catching the interest of the recruiter could be a mixture of asking the best questions, being a personality they find desirable, showing a capacity for teaching, and having a good energy.
The school I did get signed on with (ECC) just found something they liked in me rather than the other candidates. I was extremely enthusiastic and smiling throughout the interview. Before the popular thinking for getting the job was just being the best "edu-tainer." Now you'll probably be judged on your shelf life, will you be willing to have a longer term commitment or use this as a gap-year or business vacation? Companies may want the former, English consumers in Japan are likely to be more choosy in more qualified teachers for their investment. Nevertheless, being enthusiastic will still be necessary to show that you are interested in the company and their business plan.
If you're willing to try a smaller school, like the ones that are advertised here and ohayosensei, you may get lower pay and maybe a less desirable location, but I feel their acceptance rate is far higher. I received two acceptances through these sources but passed when the larger company school accepted me.
Best of luck, keep trying and you'll get here. :D |
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projectrook
Joined: 08 Jan 2010
Posts: 45
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| Posted: Wed May 05, 2010 4:19 am Post subject: |
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1) Right now is not the best time of year for hiring.
2) Far more people interviewing than there are jobs available.
3) Geos went under just a little while ago. So teachers from there are applying for the same jobs you are most likely. And it's safer for them to hire people already in Japan.
4) You haven't said anything about any qualifications you have or don't have. So I can only assume you are on par with everyone else applying for the same jobs. A dime a dozen.
For some people it's easy and for others it's not. A large part of it is just being at the right place at the right time. If you can catch an employer at the exact time they need somebody, obviously your chances increase.
As for the interview, it all depends mostly on what kind of job. If it's an eikaiwa, you must remember that it's a school and a business. So it's your job to get butts in the seats. And to do that, you have to be very animated. A lot of times, hiring staff will look more at that rather than English ability. Grammar can be taught, personality cannot. If you are looking at a job as an ALT, your English level will be weighed more.
But I cannot stress this enough, you are going to have to compete with A LOT of people. You might get lucky and get a job quickly, or it might take several years if you only plan to apply from overseas. Not everybody who wants to get a job teaching in Japan gets it. But if you or anyone gives up too early, then well that's it. If this is something you really want and it seems that you do, then stay strong and keep working at it. Make sure your resume and CV really make you shine above the rest. Learn from past interviews, review any possible mistakes you might have made and correct them. Also look at the things you felt you did very well and do them more often. Practice the interview process in front of friends or family and get advise.
Last edited by projectrook on Wed May 05, 2010 4:26 am; edited 1 time in total |
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lapat008
Joined: 28 Mar 2010
Posts: 5
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| Posted: Wed May 05, 2010 4:20 am Post subject: |
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| Thanks for the info and the encouragement Rakis!! |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Wed May 05, 2010 9:16 am Post subject: Re: How many rejections? |
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| lapat008 wrote: |
Hey all,
I have had interviews with Peppy Kids Club and Aeon. I didn't get offers from either one. I would love to know why I didn't make it despite the feeling that the interview went well. and of course Aeon states that they don't disclose that type of information.. |
Most employers all over the world don't disclose that. Don't take it personally.
| Quote: |
| How hard IS IT to get a teaching job in Japan? |
Very hard. You are complaining about having only 2 interviews???? Get used to rejection in the job hunting game (not just TEFL either). I applied to over 30 university jobs just to get an interview at one here. Cost a bundle, too, as they all wanted registered mail for the applications, which were pretty thick packages.
| Quote: |
| Was it me, or is it simply b/c there are no vacancies available? |
If you answered an ad, there was a vacancy. As mentioned earlier, we can't answer if "it was you", because we don't know a thing about you, nor did we attend your interview or see your resume/cover letter, nor did we see the other candidates.
| Quote: |
I have my last interview with Amity this week. Can someone please give me tips on how to make a great impression and increase my chances??
For those that have been successful, how 'energetic and friendly' were you?? |
1. Wear business attire.
2. Be well-groomed. (hair neatly styled, no visible tattoos, no piercings, clean nails, fresh breath, etc.)
3. Be on time. Not half an hour early, but not 5 minutes late.
4. Know as much as possible about the employer.
5. Know as much as possible about the biz.
6. Have a demo lesson in your head. Practice it so that you have it down pat, especially the first 5-10 minutes. That's usually all you get.
7. Bring extra copies of your resume.
8. Know how to answer the regular and hard Qs.
9. Ace the grammar test (if one is given), or at least get 70%.
10. Show appropriate enthusiasm and interest, even when the recruiters are boring you to tears with policy issues.
11. Don't ask about salary and time off early on.
12. Don't say you have a girlfriend/boyfriend here.
13. Don't say you became interested in Japan because of anime or manga, even if it's true.
14. Don't say you want the job to help you learn Japanese. First, you won't be able to use it anyway in the classroom. Second, you are being hired to work, not study. Third, count on others in line already knowing some.
15. If you have a specific location in mind where you want to be posted, don't expect to get it unless you have a damned good reason (and even so, it's still not guaranteed). Have others in mind.
Despite all those things, you may have to live with the fact that they chose another person for really strange or unfair-seeming reasons that are beyond your control:
A. Nationality
B. Gender
C. Eye or hair color
D. Accent/Dialect
E. How they perceive you will interact with the staff and/or students (a major factor!)
F. The speed with which you talk
G. The pauses in your answers
| Quote: |
| I know it's May already, what are the best options to get a teaching position in Japan? |
You want one now? It's going to be very hard. Just seek out the ads and apply. Of course, odds would be better if you were physically here...astronomically better.
Besides, what can we tell you that we can't tell the other gazillion people who are applying, just to put you over the top? (Well, my list of 15 is there, but some people just refuse to do a lot of those things...)
Ok, you've said your thanks, but how about letting us know what your qualifications are? |
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seklarwia
Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano
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| Posted: Wed May 05, 2010 10:44 am Post subject: Re: How many rejections? |
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| Glenski wrote: |
2. Be well-groomed. (hair neatly styled, no visible tattoos, no piercings, clean nails, fresh breath, etc.)
...
15. If you have a specific location in mind where you want to be posted, don't expect to get it unless you have a damned good reason (and even so, it's still not guaranteed). Have others in mind. |
There is nothing wrong with piercings as long as they are not wierd/wonderful (or plain freaky stretched holes with a Trex tooth through them!), they aren't too numerous and you are female. Use some common sense: don't wear more than a couple of pairs of matching studs, and those studs should be through your ear lobes and not through any form of cartilage or anywhere else visible on the face or neck - things like nose piercings may be acceptable in the workplace in our home countries, but they are often not here.
I've heard mix things about men with piercings... best to remove them all.
Be careful with how you word your preferences. People who are too insistant on very specific locations without a good reason (especially if they are the in demand major cities like Tokyo or Osaka) or are too against the idea of living in more rural areas come across as inflexible and this will definately hurt your chances of getting hired. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Wed May 05, 2010 10:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Thank you for that more definitive description of what I meant about piercings. |
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yangyoseop
Joined: 30 Mar 2010
Posts: 47
Location: #1 Sandra Bullock fan in Tallahassee, FL
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2010 2:58 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
A. Nationality
B. Gender
C. Eye or hair color
D. Accent/Dialect
E. How they perceive you will interact with the staff and/or students (a major factor!)
F. The speed with which you talk
G. The pauses in your answers
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Can you elaborate on these? Especially the bolded ones. |
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ssjup81
Joined: 15 Jun 2009
Posts: 664
Location: Adachi-ku, Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2010 3:34 am Post subject: |
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I have no experience with it, as I'm still fairly new, but some schools may only want a female or a male for said position. Before landing the Yamagata placement, I was supposed to have been placed in Kawauchi. The BoE there was solely requesting a female for the position and I was chosen for it, but seems something happened (forgot what it was) so I got placed in Yamagata.
As for eye color/hair color...not sure, but I think that some places are strict on this and would prefer one to have hair colors that are natural. For instance, I guess no walking around with green hair or something. No idea about eye color.
Some places prefer that the teacher come from an English-speaking country or have English as a first language. I just found out recently that a person who used to work in the area, despite being a good teacher, was kinda "let go" because of his accent. He was from Kenya, iirc. Maybe the students were having a tough time understanding him. Thinking about that reminded me of my old college Chemistry professor. He was from Russia and had a very strong accent. It was very difficult to understand him.
As for the speed, since the people aren't native speakers, it helps to slow down to make sure they get it and can pronounce it. Well that's my understanding of it since that's what I do. I don't read too slowly, but enough so that they can understand each word or can repeat it back to me. Even in during my unfinished CELTA course, one of the things I was told was that I needed to slow down. Hm, for example, even though I know a little bit of Japanese and Spanish, I have a tough time catching much because, to me, they're speaking it too fast. I'm going to assume that this applies to those being taught English as well. |
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seklarwia
Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2010 4:46 am Post subject: |
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| ssjup81 wrote: |
| I have no experience with it, as I'm still fairly new, but some schools may only want a female or a male for said position. Before landing the Yamagata placement, I was supposed to have been placed in Kawauchi. The BoE there was solely requesting a female for the position and I was chosen for it, but seems something happened (forgot what it was) so I got placed in Yamagata. |
At my interview in London, our interviewer showed us some ALT stats for us to discuss in the group seminar. One of things was how male ALTs out number female ones. In the past the difference in numbers was quite great, but even in the 2008 stats 60% were still male. And at our session there was 7/8 applicants but only 3 of us were girls, which the interviewer said had been pretty much the same ratio across all the sessions. In our BOE there are definately more men. I went to a meeting to pick up my year schedule and out of the group of just over 10, there was only me and one other girl. Amongst the JETs here you can see the same.
But women are often seen as less initimidating and therefore a better choice especially in schools with younger students.
So female staff are a bit in demand, especially now that there are more placements in ES.
| Quote: |
| As for eye color/hair color...not sure, but I think that some places are strict on this and would prefer one to have hair colors that are natural. For instance, I guess no walking around with green hair or something. No idea about eye color. |
How cutely naive! 
This is how in the past many employers wanted to employ stereotypical looking foreigners, because they believed that that was what the customers would pay to see and some of the more ignorant customers were paying to see in the classroom. In the past many Japanese believed that if you didn't look a certain way, then there was no way you could be speaking genuine English. Afterall, everyone knows you have to have blonde hair and blue eyes to be from an English speaking country like the UK, OZ, NZ or US and there is no way you can trust any of the English that comes out of the mouth of anyone even remotely Asian in appearance... 
Although this is changing and many employers are not hiring candidates using appearance as a large deciding factor, there are still some that would prefer to hire people who looked a certain way. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2010 6:05 am Post subject: |
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| yangyoseop wrote: |
| Quote: |
A. Nationality
B. Gender
C. Eye or hair color
D. Accent/Dialect
E. How they perceive you will interact with the staff and/or students (a major factor!)
F. The speed with which you talk
G. The pauses in your answers
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Can you elaborate on these? Especially the bolded ones. |
I would think these were obvious. Reread my post. In general, these items are things the employer will see or hear, and are beyond your control to change at that moment.
Nationality and gender are fixed. Some employers want only Americans or Brits, etc. Some may want only a female but are not supposed to advertise such (by law). Too bad for those males who go in.
Eye color may be changed with contacts, but who really does that these days? Hair color can also be changed, but on the day you interview (or send a photo), what they see is the employer's image.
Accent and dialect come out of your mouth at whatever speed and with whatever pauses you put into them. Unless you have practiced beforehand, what the employer hears in the interview (or on a video demo you might have made) is what he uses in part to judge whether your students will understand/enjoy. In addition, by pauses, I mean whether you seem to know an answer, or are unsure and delay your response.
As for E, it's all chemistry. Be as energetic and personable and polite as you can, but you don't know what the employer wants, which is pretty much the case for A - G.
| Quote: |
| In the past many Japanese believed that if you didn't look a certain way, then there was no way you could be speaking genuine English. |
It's still that way for some employers, which is why many Asians find it hard to get jobs here.
| Quote: |
| Afterall, everyone knows you have to have blonde hair and blue eyes to be from an English speaking country |
Unfortunately, in 2007, there was still an ad posted for precisely this description for a teacher!
http://www.debito.org/?p=220 |
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G Cthulhu
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
Posts: 1373
Location: Way, way off course.
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2010 5:28 pm Post subject: Re: How many rejections? |
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| seklarwia wrote: |
There is nothing wrong with piercings as long as they are not wierd/wonderful (or plain freaky stretched holes with a Trex tooth through them!), they aren't too numerous and you are female. Use some common sense: don't wear more than a couple of pairs of matching studs, and those studs should be through your ear lobes and not through any form of cartilage or anywhere else visible on the face or neck - things like nose piercings may be acceptable in the workplace in our home countries, but they are often not here.
I've heard mix things about men with piercings... best to remove them all.
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This was an interesting subject of discussion during the JET interview round this year in...ummmm.... "one of the northern US locations". I (and most of the other ex-JET interviewers) was of the opinion that people with visible piercings were a negative because it would either be disruptive in the classroom at the higher school levels (yr not fitting the image of professional the schools generally want) or simply dangerous at the lower schools levels (yr giving the little sods another thing to grab at elem/primary level) . The interesting part was that some of the Japanese embassy staff didn't agree.
There were a larger number of people this year compared to the last two years who showed up with large numbers of piercings - not just a nose stud here or there, but a couple of people with wide gauge plugs, multiple ear, cheek and lips done, one person with some bars in down the side of the neck, and a couple with tattoos to match. The attitudes when they were asked about how they would react if their schools asked them to remove them were equally informative - with only one exception they all thought the schools should bend to them on the matter.
Many 20-somethings in the US have some interesting ideas about entitlement and what counts as professional these days.  |
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seklarwia
Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2010 11:18 pm Post subject: Re: How many rejections? |
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| G Cthulhu wrote: |
This was an interesting subject of discussion during the JET interview round this year in...ummmm.... "one of the northern US locations". I (and most of the other ex-JET interviewers) was of the opinion that people with visible piercings were a negative because it would either be disruptive in the classroom at the higher school levels (yr not fitting the image of professional the schools generally want) or simply dangerous at the lower schools levels (yr giving the little sods another thing to grab at elem/primary level) . The interesting part was that some of the Japanese embassy staff didn't agree.
There were a larger number of people this year compared to the last two years who showed up with large numbers of piercings - not just a nose stud here or there, but a couple of people with wide gauge plugs, multiple ear, cheek and lips done, one person with some bars in down the side of the neck, and a couple with tattoos to match. The attitudes when they were asked about how they would react if their schools asked them to remove them were equally informative - with only one exception they all thought the schools should bend to them on the matter.
Many 20-somethings in the US have some interesting ideas about entitlement and what counts as professional these days. |
I think the embassy people are a bit silly about that. And recruiters that bring in these people who are not prepared to remove or cover piercing and tattoos are only further tarnishing JET's reputation. Surely they realise that it is yet another reason why BOEs are choosing to go with apparently more professional dispatch companies which tend to enforce Japanese dresscodes on their ALTs.
And I'd like to see these 20 something year olds land a school job in their home countries with all their piercings and tattoos on display... Many of those things wouldn't be acceptable back home, so why do they believe themselves above the rules in Japan which are not all too different to back home.
One of the new JETs last summer stuck a small nose stud in on the first day of school. The next day everybody was talking about it, and not in a good way. And even I know about the JET who left the summer before I arrived, who paraded her belly-button piercing in school despite numerous requests that she cover it and her belly. The fact that she displayed the piercing was bad enough, but how she refused to cover it when asked caused even more outrage. Guess what? She was replaced by a dispatch ALT when she left.
If this is how Japanese staff and parents are reacting to relatively normal body piercings by western standards. I'd love to see the reaction to some of the more out there pieces of "body art" that are becoming more popular back home  |
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lenoreelux
Joined: 30 Nov 2009
Posts: 44
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2010 11:57 pm Post subject: |
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| I have a Monroe piercing and I take it out everyday when I go to my schools. I want to look professional and I do not want to cause problems in my schools. Japan is a conservative country. People need to respect what the BOEs want and if they do not want piercings then take them out. Even in my last job in the US I have to take out my piercing for work. Schools in the Us don't hire teachers with piercings..... why do people think that it is different in Japan???? |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 12:12 am Post subject: Re: How many rejections? |
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| G Cthulhu wrote: |
| The interesting part was that some of the Japanese embassy staff didn't agree. |
Could you go into more detail on their feelings and reasons?
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| Many 20-somethings in the US have some interesting ideas about entitlement and what counts as professional these days. |
Have been seeing such stuff for years on these boards. Don't think it'll ever change. Are those feelings only from the Americans? |
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