Korean Job Discussion Forums

[TECO]

[little mixed girl]

^
the program does exist to provide cultural ambassadors.
but, i don't know if ALTs on JET do more or less teaching than NOVA.

NOVA, etc are basically hagwons. most of the JET ALTs are working in public schools and are supposed to also participate in various school activites too. (i think)

JET ALTs are also supposed to go around to different schools, meaning working with different teachers. so, there are a lot of differences between JET and the NOVA crew.

in regards to the application, applications are due by the end of november, but the application isn't usually posted online until september.

it's a long, complicated application. and it's not your grades that get you an interview, but how well you wrote your statement of purpose. you have to cram a whole bunch of stuff into two pages and make it flow well.

there are people on JET who should have never set foot out of their basement, let alone into a foreign country; and there are people who should probably be here, but something was lacking in their application. (maybe something stupid like not putting the papers in the right order)

[pastis]

^
NOVA is basically considered to be among the worst places to work. A typical day might have you teaching eight 50min. lessons in a day. Lots of stories of employees burning out from overwork (one guy even committed suicide a few years back from work-induced stress, there's a lawsuit pending). The pay is crap considering the hours, just the standard 250k yen/month (before tax). Apparently the lessons are scripted too, you get almost no freedom in your teaching methods.
They rip off the teachers on housing as well - they'll stick like 3 people into a grungy apartment charging each 70k yen (total ~210k) even though the actual rent is only around 70k total...
There's really not much good that can be said about Nova (except that they will likely soon be out of business).

Getting accepted to JET is like winning the lottery. Like any ALT job you have a certain amount of contract hours where you have to stay at the school (I think it's like 7-8hrs/day), but typically only ~3 hours of actual teaching. So apparently you get a lot of free time to just chill out and plan lessons etc. Pay is quite good: ~300k (after tax), plus you often get free housing and your flight is paid for. The only 'downside' (depending on how you look at it) is that you're nearly sure to be placed in a small town (if your main goal is saving money though, this is a good thing). All in all, it's probably the cushiest gig around, and if you get free housing, you can easily save more than in Korea.

[Mosley]

Well, JET's a good gig but to say it's "winning the lottery" is a bit much. For one thing, ALTs are limited to 3 yrs. service.

The days have passed since JETs were merely the token foreigners...some actual teaching is now expected!

For Incognito: I guess when you said you were "outright rejected" you meant you weren't granted an interview. If it's any comfort, many of those who do get interviewed don't get in...usually because they botch it up. A chap I know had a JET interview a few yrs. ago. He was asked "Who's the PM of Japan?" & "What are the 4 main islands of Japan?". Not a clue. Guess his result? He was the first to admit he didn't deserve to get in.

As for your application, several things could've gone wrong. As has been noted, the application process is anal to the nth degree. Was every T crossed & I dotted? Was everything in order in the way that THEY wanted? How about the personal essay? Did you discuss Japan as opposed to yourself? Did you inject a dose of humility(a prized Japanese value)into your essay-writing persona...or did you toot your own horn?

High marks by themselves don't ensure admission into JET(and neither should they). As far as extra-curricular activities go, something like being involved in a political party is not a plus for JET. If anything, it might be seen as a detriment. Compare that with a legit claim that one volunteered teaching ESL to foreign students. And as far as "athletics" go, I met plenty of JETs who would've hardly been described as "athletic".

The average age of a JET is something like 26. It's interesting to note that the maximum age for JET has evolved from 30 to 35 to 40.

Being rejected by JET doesn't preclude being accepted at a later date, so long as you apply when you're 39 or younger.

[pastis]

[Mosley]

pastis: Your evaluation is pretty accurate, IMHO.

If I may ask: Who'd you work for in Tokyo?

[pastis]

[TECO]

I talked to a few JET teachers and worked with a few at Berlitz, Japan.

Believe it or not, we made more working at Berlitz than the JET teachers did. They were making Y320,000 a month or so and we were all making at least Y350,000 - Y500,000 a month, depending on our contracts and the schedules and o.t. we got.

That, together with some ALT high school hours in the mornings or lucractive corpates in the evening, and we were earning anywhere from between Y400,000 - Y600,000 a month.

The trick is to work for a company like Berlitz as a "per-hour" instructor and then to fill in the empty hours with lucrative corporate and ALT jobs.

Signing a full time contract is where one seriously limits their eranings potential in Japan.

JET never interested me, either.

A lot of JET teachers don't even do all that much teaching and are often kept on a pretty short leash, based on what I've been told by several JET teachers.

Again, NOVA and Berlitz, or any any eikaiwa instructors, do more unsupervised teaching than JET's do.

Whatsmore, a JET teacher is stuck at school all day when the Berlitz or NOVA teacher is out teaching ALT classes in the morning for Y6,500 an hour or evening corporates for Y7,000 an hour if they're morning instructors. Meanwhile, the JET is sitting in class reading the Japan Times bored out of his/ her skull.

Also, the isolation of living in a crappy rural area can get people down and not something I was ever interested in.

Bottom line, JET never impressed me and never received great reviews about the program from ex-JET teachers.

[pastis]

[Mosley]

As someone else mentioned, it's extremely rare for a JET to pull a runner and the renewal rate is pretty high. If I had had an option for a 4th year, I'd have taken it. In my prefecture, the actual number of JETs who were living in REAL "inaka" was pretty small.

All in all, it's a good gig.

[TECO]

Should I work in Korea or Japan?

[reimund]

Well... if anyone is curious as to what I've decided to do, I picked up a job offer as an HR person at a decently well-known hakwon. I applied as a teacher there, but they referred me to the HR position because of my work experience/background in administration. I took up their offer because I think it suits me, given my background and potential to work in administration/management when I come back to the states.

I'm not in Korea and working there yet, so obviously things aren't completely final. They did send me the contract, however, so hopefully everything will go through. I still have this nagging fear, though, that they might terminate or cancel the contract at the last minute. We'll see.

Thanks again for all your help. This board was an invaluable resource for my search, and I can't thank Dave and the members here enough.

[Mosley]

I teach more hrs. at my public school here than I did w/JET but I save about 20% more now than I did w/JET.

Good gig or not, Japan can be bloody expensive.

[pastis]

[Big_Bird]