Job Discussion Forums

[kovac]

I'd made a posting recently about (what I considered) unrealstic learning times for mastering Japanese, some folks were honest and discussed the ups n downs, some folks perpetuated the kana in 3hrs myth...yes it is a myth...Ive spoke to elementary school teachers, Japanese language teachers, collegues, etc about this....(please dont reply with "oh I did !"...its not the aim of this post...)

Crux of this post is another "interesting" phenomena....(if you can call it interesting....)after looking at this site and other sites as well as doing some personal research alot of people have come to Japan as english teachers, along the way, theyve studied Japanese and some have become pretty good like JLPT 1 or 2, but they continue to be english teachers in the eikaiwa industry....now some people have chosen teaching as their career, its a good career to choose....but within eikaiwa ? I had to bark at one guy recently in a bar who was english teaching saying how he got his JLPT1 .."if your Japanese is that good, why not get a real job�eikaiwa et al is a verbal mcdonalds�

Reason Im asking this is because I came to Japan to learn Japanese and one day settle with a half decent job, but Im beginning to wonder what career opportunities are open to ex eikaiwa people even if they have good japanese skills ? I have 5 years experience in IT but by the time I master Japanese those skills will be truly redundant (even after 1 year I feel out of the loop) If only there was some outlet for utilising previous skills...? Ive searched the job boards....JLPT2 minimum with at least 2-3 years exp in given field....

Ive heard semi horror stories of people who get "Stuck" in english teaching unable to move into any new field...(the 250,000 but with a wife and 2 kids...)

I would hate to think after moving to a new country and living for some time I could be utlised only for my "english speaking" capacity. I would be really interested to hear of people who had worked in Japan as an english teacher and moved on to other employment....embaressingly my research has extended to the limits of whenever I see a non Japanese person approaching them sparking up conversation to see what job they do....9 out of 10 its english teacher, the others are company transfer people, cheap manual labour (mainly african, brazilian), hostesses, street food vendors, cleaners or kitchen staff (actually would quite like to work in a kitchen again after all those years...used to be a chef for 2 years)

But is this Japan ? I went to "Hello Work" in shinjuku recently and conducted my whole interview in japanese and expressed any work was ok, I have a chefs certificate with 2 years exp, I have a scaffolders certificate with construction site exp, 5 years exp in IT, mediocre Japanese skills, but yet all they offered me was english teaching roles.....I would rue the day I do reach JLPT 1 or 2 and be offered the same thing....but upon meeting and quizzing various people, mebbe this is all thats on offer....

Would like to hear more if you know more....

[Celeste]

For different kinds of work, there are a few options open to you. You could work for a multinational company (they have positions for bilingual people), you can start making contacts at your country's embassy or consulate (these jobs are not plentiful, but they do arise), or you can open your own business. TO go the opening your own business route, you may find it easier to cut through the red tape and get bank loans if you have a Japanese business partner. Banks and civic officials may give a foreign business person a harder time than they would a Japanese national.

I do know foreigners with high Japanese speaking ability who own their own businesses. (Here's the kicker- many of them still do a bit of teaching on the side because they just can't turn down the more lucrative teaching opportunities!)

[Tonester]

I know that a lot of people see the ESL field as simply a money-making endeavour and don't really think about the development of their students (For the sake of the people who are offended by this comment- I must spell out that this doesn't mean everyone necessarily). Which is why I guess that some people will always want to do it. Look at the amount of "Verbal McDonald's Restaraunts" out there and all the dispatch companies and you'll be able to see that most of (there are exceptions)the people that own those companies have no ESL background whatsoever and are simply entrepeneurs with business backgrounds or marketing.

As for the eikaiwaites who have JLPT 1 or 2; it does seem illogical but perhaps some like it so much that they stay. Either that or perhaps there just doesn't seem to be many employment opportunities for them other than that as multinational companies usually have a higher standard when they are recruiting new employees.

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

Any aspect of Japanese society being closed to "outside (country) people"?

hmmm....what a shocker.



Eventually, Japan will have to start importing more foreign people as the population dwindles, but as it is there are still a lot of Japanese university graduates who don't have jobs, so the number of foreign people being hired for jobs that do not require knowledge that is lacking in Japan (i.e. cross-cultural and foreign language skills, plus the ever-necessary naturally blond-hair and blue eyes ) will remain low.

Added to that is an (occasionally) unspoken belief that non-Japanese people cannot ever fit in with Japanese society, the same people who believe this may also believe that they themselves could never fit in with another society because-- or therefore-- they have never tried. Unfortunately it only takes one person in the top end of a Japanese company to feel this way and there will never be a non-Japanese person working for that company in anything other than manual labour (assuming it isn't an eikaiwa school).

It sucks to think that you have to wait for a lot of people to retire in order to get a half-decent job in the country of your choice, but it is what humanities related university graduates in Ontario, Canada have been told for about a decade now. And now mandatory retirement at 65 has just ended (or is about to end?) in Ontario. So the (overseas eikaiwa) wait continues and there's already talk of "the lost generation".

[canuck]

Lots of times you need a skill AND Japanese. Sometimes teaching in more lucrative. There are lots of foreigners in non teaching positions, but it's more the exception than the rule. Many of the foreigners in the non-teaching positions also don't have great Japanese language skills. There's no rule other than the better your Japanese is in Japan, the more opportunities you have.

Just by being a native English speaking foreigner with a level 1 Japanese certificate doesn't guarantee a job outside teaching.

[Glenski]

[PAULH]

dont forget you need a visa that allows you to do things that you can not do on a teaching visa i.e. a non-teaching visa. Spouse or permanent resident visa. How many people here have those? How many have developed the skills, have the language ability AND the right visa?

As Glenski says you have to have skills that people are willing to pay for, and the visa that allows you to do it. The rest is just connections and job competence. Japanese is just about being able to talk with Japanese people. how many non-qualified fluent English speaking Japanese can just get a job in a foreign country with nothing more than English ability?

[myesl]

A few years back I found almost a handful of people on JET-L and BD (combined) who worked in IT. I was thinking of learning some sort of IT thingy, but they offered no meaningful advice (what to learn). They said they needed to be good in Japanese, but not necessarily hyper-fluent.

Of course, Japan is very tight in letting foreigners do anything, qualified or not. It's not the US where we give away our IT jobs while our IT workers go to WalMart

Try BD or Gaijin Pot or someplace and post this sort of thing there.

[fizayded]

boogaloo is a style of dance, and breakin 2: electic boogaloo, but that one was pretty bad, rent the first breakin