Job Discussion Forums

[mrtwist]

Hello,

I graduated with a degree in Japanese three years ago and to my chagrin I'm still living in the US. There have been a lot of reasons for this which aren't worth getting into at the moment, but come hell or high water I am committed to moving to Tokyo and getting a job this coming March. Unfortunately I'm rather overwhelmed by the idea of finding a job there. Over the past three years I've made half-hearted attempts to get a job with the following companies:

NOVA - Job offer was rescinded due to a paperwork mishap - in retrospect a blessing in disguise considering what happened to them!
AEON - Didn't want the job because the pay was so low & the idea of handing out tissues on the street and the mandatory shoving of useless products on students repulsed me
Bridge Linguatec - Found out all jobs are in the countryside area and I didn't want to pay money to get a job in the countryside.

Recently I was thinking about the RCS Corporation based on an add on Gaijinpot that said they had jobs in Tokyo, but I've read some very dicey things about them and have decided getting a job with them would be a bad idea.

I also applied to a language program called KCP in Tokyo this past spring, got accepted, but found out I would be unable to obtain a pre-college visa unless I had $25,000 in ready funds, which is quite a bit more than I have laying around. This seems pretty preposterous to me, but that's what I was told when I tried to apply for the visa.

For the past year I've been working as a substitute teacher in charter schools here in Minnesota and I've discovered that I love working with kids, so for me an ALT position would be ideal (well actually my ideal would be being able to study at a language school for two or three years, but I can't afford it). I didn't go to school to be a teacher, so I doubt I could get anything except for an ALT position.

Can I just show up in March and find an ALT position from a reputable company? I don't want to end up a lawbreaker by proxy working for a company that skirts the law.

Moving to Tokyo is something very serious for me. This isn't a whim, but rather the key to unlocking what I would like to with the rest of my life. I've wasted three years living in Minnesota and next month I'm going to be 29. I'm very affraid that by the time I actually do get to Japan - if ever - that my fluid intelligence will be depleted and I won't be able to become fluent. As for my current ability, I doubt I could pass the nikkyu tomorrow, but my Japanese professor told me I was close to being able to when I finished my fourth year. It frightens me that all of that work will end up being for naught if I don't get to Japan soon.

Anyway, and help would be appreciated more than you know. I'm feeling very desperate and hopeless here, since all online methods of finding a job in Japan seem to be nothing but fool's gold. Can I find an OK entry level ALT job in Tokyo with nothing but substitute teaching experience and some Japanese ability?

PS: I haven't even considered JET because I would be miserable in a small town. However, I'm getting desperate enough that I'm considering applying this year. I've heard that getting accepted by them is far from a sure thing though, which has me even more scared!

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Sorry if it is rambling and incoherent, but my mind is a whirl of confusion whenever I think about this.

[mrtwist]

One more thing: would $6,000 - $7,000 be enough to get started in Tokyo if I do end up moving there alone and trying to find a job? I had previously heard around $5,000, but that was a few years ago.

Also, I heard a lot of talk of the necessity of key money and guarantor fees. Is it possible to find Japanese roommates who are already set up with a place, or is this practice not as common there as it is in the States?

Thanks again for any answers. I need to formulate a solid plan here, and any help is much appreciated.

[fluffyhamster]

Being a dispatch AET won't really make you a "lawbreaker by proxy" (the only people breaking Labour Laws will be those illegal and exploitative dispatchers; as for the Boards of Education, they are probably only flouting MEXT guidelines mostly), unless you count not being enrolled in the national health insurance and probably unable to afford even el cheapo private health insurance as lawbreaking; no, you'll just be being exploited and therefore financially shakey, almost co-dependent with the dispatcher, and have a diminishing ability to decisively change to something better in the future. But in any case, I don't recall seeing that many jobs advertised for AETs in Tokyo anyway - the majority seem to be for the surrounding prefectures, so you might end up having to live in and work (commute) between bedtowns, and only be able to enjoy Tokyo proper in the evenings or at the weekends. It might therefore and as you say still be worth trying for JET or M-ALT/TEIJ (even if those would take years to apply and be accepted for - they're good jobs!). Or you could scour the jobs in e.g. the O-hayo Sensei job newsletter and try to find a reasonable small independent eikaiwa in Kanto or near a sizeable city elsewhere in Japan.

[mrtwist]

Thanks for the reply.

One thing I didn't understand though was why I would have a "diminishing ability to change to something better in the future" if I worked for a dispatch service? I get that I would be economically exploited at that kind of job, but couldn't I use it as a springboard to something better in a year's time?

One thing I notice every now and again are ads for English speakers to work in Kindergartens in the Tokyo area. Are those also not the most reputable jobs? It's looking more and more like there is no possible way for me to find a decent job in Tokyo? Is that the case?

Finally, it may not be worth it for me to get a job in Tokyo right now with my current language ability. Can anyone recommend to me a good language program in Tokyo - or nearby - that offers student visa sponsorship and upper level classes (ie above what I learned in four years of university level Japanese)? I would prefer a college visa to a pre-college visa, as the former is in my experience considerably easier to obtain!

[mrtwist]

One more thing:

I'm willing to make far less money in order to live in Tokyo than I would working for JET and living in the countryside. I can't express how much I hate rural living, and it would make me miserable to live in the inaka. Tokyo is the only option for me that will be fulfilling.

I just feel so desperate and crushed though. Every time I think the door to my dreams is being opened it slams right in my face and I'm stuck here in the US. It's just so depressing. Sorry for the rant, but I have NOBODY to ask that I know in real life about these things.

[fluffyhamster]

Unlicensed dispatch company AET work is indirect employment (which is technically illegal in Japan and termed 'intermediate exploitation' in the Labour Laws): the dispatcher takes at least a third of what should've been a direct salary, as commission for easing the BOEs' worries about hiring, training, discipline and firing, whilst denying basic rights such as paid leave (and even unpaid leave) - the dispatcher doesn't want to lose ANY profits. (The end result is that the BOEs end up with more disgruntled and "problematic" AETs than if they'd just hired directly, but that doesn't seem to occur to many Japanese - foreigners are just spoilt and unreasonable, and why shouldn't it be one rule for us and another for them, they haven't paid their dues, are poorly trained and educated, have crazy ideas, are confrontational etc etc).

Now, all that might just about be bearable, but the indirect nature of the employment means that your first month's pay doesn't arrive until the end of the second month (the BOEs want proof that the work has been done, and timesheets take a while to be completed, submitted and processed, especially when submitted at the very end of the month, over a week after direct pay is processed), so your pay lags a month behind and is out of synch with the BOE's own payday to boot! Add to that set-up costs (which if you don't have enough savings you'll have to borrow from the dispatcher, and repay in sizeable and sometimes unreasonably large installments - it's ultimately "up to them" how much they pay into your account! Sometimes as low as 100,000 yen!!) and you can see how you'll almost immediately be in quite a hole from which it could take months if not years to climb out from (much will depend on things like rent, transport costs/distances to schools - usually unpaid - availability of affordable health insurance, demands for local taxes in subsequent years etc. One thing is for sure, you'll need to make a budget, stick to it, and generally live frugally for quite a while!). And even if you manage all that, dispatch jobs come and go, as the lowest bid wins out into the following year, so you might have ever longer commutes to pastures new if you don't fancy setting up more convenient accomodation there at your own expense. (Sorry if that seemed too much of a rant!).

I am sure that some kindergartens aren't too bad, but I myself wouldn't fancy trying to actually teach English to really young kids (i.e. below elementary first grade age) and being responsible for their progress (or lack of it) unless contact time were more than sufficient and resources and support high (and perhaps it would be best if this work were left to real specialists - not that one can't learn from experience, but still...is one's heart in it?). If you are going to teach kids, I'd advise that they have at least a year or two of schooling behind them, otherwise I think it'll be harder for them to relate to much or gain much benefit.

I can't really advise you about student visas except to say that I would imagine you've got enough Japanese under your belt by now to be ready to at least immerse yourself in life if not language work (i.e. at least TEFL) here (I went to China with only a year-long postgrad diploma in Mandarin and managed fine, even though it took a few years from the end of that course for me to get to Shanghai). Can I ask though, do you need to prove that you have sufficient funds for the tuition and living expenses? (Edit: Oops you answered that question, 25,000 for pre-college?! Again, can't advise about the college visa. Probably best as Glenski's said below to work full-time so you'll have more money with which to study and pay for whatever. Hmm, just to add a few more points about things I didn't really answer: I think you'd be snapped up for dispatch AET work, but with your Japanese ability, you might like to instead consider applying to be a JET CIR - Coordinator for International Relations - because as a CIR you'd have the opportunity to use your Japanese (and doubtless have some free time in which to study and bone up if need be). And FWIW I don't think you'll lose the ability to become fluent at just 29 or 30-something - I came to Japan aged 29, and although I don't profess to have great Japanese, I think I picked up a fair bit despite not having studied much beyond the kana syllabaries (to augment whatever knowledge I could transfer from having already mastered a reasonable number of characters in Chinese)).

Hmm, I can appreciate that you are a keen urbanite, but you have to be realistic. You couldn't go much below 250,000 yen (especially if that gets more or less halved with a combination of accepting say dispatch work and lack of savings) and still be able to afford to live outside let alone in Tokyo. But that is as a single person not sharing expenses, who doesn't get at all lucky with helpful contacts etc. Maybe your language and other skills and aptitudes will help you make a better life for yourself despite the odds than I have had in Japan (enjoyable enough but certainly not that financially rewarding, despite my hard work and dedication!). You're absolutely sure that you couldn't stomach it for a year at most in a surrounding prefecture (there are some sizeable and quite lively cities in e.g. Saitama e.g. Omiya, only a half hour or so by train from central Tokyo), living in a guest house or whatever shabby accommodation, save like mad, before making the move into Tokyo? (BTW, where exactly in Tokyo were you thinking of living, or would you like to live, anyway? Somebody might be able to give you further advice...).

[Glenski]

What have you got against working in small, rural town, especially if you want to improve/use your Japanese language skills? Seems totally opposite thinking to me.

Moreover, if you live in a smaller town, you might not be a zillion miles from a larger city (which offers some things that you might want, but not have the chance to take advantage of until you are off work on weekends anyway).

[mrtwist]

Thanks again for the responses.

[mrtwist]

Glenski, thanks very much for your reply.

[Glenski]

[Apsara]

[fluffyhamster]

[fluffyhamster]

Aspara - agree about just taking the plunge (I too headed off - in my case for China, very intrepid of me eh - before the net and access to it was the norm), but I don't think it can be stressed enough how important it is to have savings already (or at least not blow all your salary, or "blow" whatever salary, every month); without money, you can't weather any storms and may well end washed up somewhere, in a situation you'd rather not be in, with no means of escape (which is what as I've said happened to me when I returned to Japan a year or so after a very pleasant three on JET, and ended up working for ever-dodgier dispatchers (in comparison to the first of them that I worked for, Interac - why didn't I stay with them, and in that hovel of a guesthouse?! LOL)). Not that any of this really applies to mrtwist here.

Hmm, maybe too much information again there, but I can't seem to help talking to myself.

Fluffyhamster Crusoe

[dove]

I definitely agree that having savings is the key, especially for a country like Japan. The internet is important for research, but it can also breed worry as you research every possible worst case scenario. I think if you have savings you can plunge into a new experience....I know my savings allowed me to give teaching in Brazil a try. I did some research but I knew I just had to go for it.

I worked for AEON. Yes, they have sales campaigns twice a year that turn teachers into salespersons. But some of the books they sell really do help the students because there are weekly check tests that the students have to take. The materials do give the students an incentive to study outside of class. But the most important thing at AEON is student renewals. Students are paying a lot of money and they DO want to learn. They will complain if a teacher is not serious, or is unprofessional. If your students are happy and renewing their contracts and giving good feedback, then you can have a good experience working at AEON.

[Glenski]

A few things to add to what has already been written: