How to Get a Job in Japan

Don't let anyone tell you that you must live an unremarkable life.

There is a great big world out there, and nobody is making you miss it. You can get out. You can see what’s on the other side. And you can get paid for it.

• Are you unsat­is­fied with the direc­tion your life has taken since col­lege?
• Are you tired of serv­ing coffee to annoy­ing yup­pies who think they are the center of the universe?
• Does your local karaoke bar have a lim­ited selection?
• Have you ever wanted to do some­thing that nobody you know has ever done?
• Do you worry about grow­ing old with­out having seen the world?
• Are you strug­gling to get by with col­lege loans hang­ing over your head?
• Are you tired of stale sushi?
• Have you ever felt that your life was meaningless?
• Do you love robots?

If you answered “yes” to any of these ques­tions, you owe it to your­self to keep read­ing, because I cre­ated How to Get a Job in Japan for you.

I've Been There, and I Can Help You

Maybe you’re already actively look­ing for employ­ment now.

• Are you tired of trying to sift through all the crap infor­ma­tion online won­der­ing whom to trust?
• Have you spent an hour read­ing some­thing that claims to be “all about find­ing a job in Japan” only to get to the end and find it’s copy­righted years ago?
• Have you tried con­sult­ing inter­net forums only to find them full of trolls, flames, and complainers?

I’ve been there. Over the past sev­eral years, I’ve had dozens of people asking me for the exact infor­ma­tion in this guide. These have been people who were tired of wading through all the out­dated and con­tra­dic­tory infor­ma­tion float­ing around online. People who tried to figure out what they needed to know by read­ing inter­net forums but couldn’t dis­tin­guish the good advice from the misinformed.

After rewrit­ing the same series of emails over and over again for years, I finally decided to col­lect all of my knowl­edge about Japanese Jobs in one place. The result is How to Get a Job in Japan. Creative title, right?

Before you start think­ing that this is just some guy writ­ing the­o­ries about the Japanese job market, I want to prove to you that this course con­sists of tried and true strate­gies that are proven to work.

After living here for sev­eral years, I had to return home to the US for a few months. All the while, my girl­friend and I racked up tons of fre­quent flier miles (and a siz­able credit card debt) trying to stay together. Eventually, Japan won out, and I was faced with find­ing a work from over­seas again.

To com­pound the dif­fi­culty of find­ing a job, this was in late 2007 — just a few months after the English con­ver­sa­tion mega-chain NOVA went bank­rupt, leav­ing thou­sands of des­per­ate English teach­ers with­out employ­ment. Talk about a flooded job market, this was a tough time to be trying to apply for a job in Japan. But I did apply, and I was offered an inter­view. The recruiter and I talked over instant coffee and some kind of cook­ies, and after a couple of hours, he offered me a job on the spot. I accepted, and moved back to Japan a few months later. If I can pull that off in the tough­est job market Japan has ever seen, I can help you find work.

Why You Want to Live in Japan

I know that work isn’t the most impor­tant thing in your life. After all, we work to live, not the other way around, right? For most people, work­ing in Japan is really just a means to an end — living in Japan.

Let me tell you, living in Japan is great.

This is an amaz­ing coun­try, and there are tons of inter­est­ing things to see and do.

• I have a heated toilet seat in my apartment.
• The neigh­bor­hood karaoke joint has songs in Japanese, Korean, and English.
• In the summer, I can see fire­works from my bal­cony, and there’s a park about a block away where I invite friends over for BBQ.
• There is vir­tu­ally no vio­lent crime.
• There are 1001 fla­vors of ice cream (I’m on a mis­sion to taste them all) and other local del­i­ca­cies every­where you go.
• Japan has one of the best public tran­sit sys­tems in the entire world.

But I don’t think I have to con­vince you that living in Japan is an expe­ri­ence you want. You already know that, and it’s the thing that lead you here in the first place. So the ques­tion is, why aren’t you here already?

There could be a number of things holding you back:

• You don’t speak Japanese.
• You don’t have any work experience.
• You’re afraid you won’t be able to find work.
• You’ve never been out of the coun­try, and you’re ner­vous about being able to live here.
• You’ve heard that living in Japan is expen­sive.

But those are just excuses. Everybody starts with no expe­ri­ence, and most of us didn’t speak much, if any, Japanese at all before moving here. And let me assure you that there are jobs. Excuses should not be hold­ing you back from living your dreams — espe­cially if those dreams include living in Japan someday.

Japan is a modern nation that has all the things you’ll find in the rest of the world. Sure, Tokyo is one of the most expen­sive cities in the world, but nobody is saying you have to live in Tokyo. There are sev­eral other cities through­out the coun­try where you can enjoy a high qual­ity of life on very modest means. You can watch movies in English, eat fried chicken, and shoot hoops at the local gym. If you’re con­cerned that you won’t be able to adapt to a Japanese lifestyle, rest assured that you have noth­ing to worry about.

Let’s look at what you should really be worried about:

• Finding a job after grad­u­a­tion that pays more than $8/hour
• Paying off stu­dent loans
• Missing out on the oppor­tu­nity to change your life
• Growing old with­out having trav­eled the world when you had the chance
• Being unsat­is­fied with your cur­rent options
• Living an unre­mark­able life
• Always won­der­ing how things could have been

There are oppor­tu­ni­ties for you here that will pay you good money while allow­ing you to expe­ri­ence far more than you would where you are now.

You'll Never Be the Same

Your expe­ri­ences here will change the way you look at life for­ever. I can promise you that.

You’ll start out think­ing how strange Japan is, but then you’ll start to notice how sim­i­lar people really are despite their cul­tural dif­fer­ences. You’ll also begin to see what your own cul­ture looks like from the out­side and gain per­spec­tive on things back home that you would never have even noticed oth­er­wise. You’ll have the chance to gain pro­fes­sional expe­ri­ence: teach­ing, speak­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, cul­tural sen­si­tiv­ity, not to men­tion lan­guage. How valu­able you make your expe­ri­ence here is only a matter of your moti­va­tion to learn and how well you lever­age those lessons.

What's Included

A lot of effort and atten­tion to detail went into the orga­ni­za­tion, layout, and design of this guide.

How to Get a Job in Japan gives you:

• 7 steps to apply­ing for work in Japan from abroad — so you know what your pri­mary objec­tive is at all times
• spe­cific strate­gies for pass­ing the JET Programme appli­ca­tion and inter­view stages — from a former JET inter­viewer — that give you a seri­ous edge in being selected
• 5 little-known ways to find a job if you’re already in Japan — because the best jobs are not posted on the big boards
• 16 (non-obvious) steps you can take to make your move easy and pain­less — to take the uncer­tainty out of your trip overseas
• a thor­ough under­stand­ing of how com­mu­ni­ca­tion skill is the most impor­tant “qual­i­fi­ca­tion” for get­ting any job
• 2 ways to lever­age non-paid oppor­tu­ni­ties while trav­el­ing on a tourist visa — to make the most the skills and expe­ri­ence you do have

I’ll also tell you:

• how to research poten­tial employ­ers so you can avoid those with a rep­u­ta­tion for taking advan­tage for­eign workers
• how to com­pare job post­ings so you don’t get thrown off by mis­lead­ing or vague information
• the best ways to con­tact a poten­tial employer — hint: it doesn’t include click­ing a “submit” button
• whether you should fly over to search for jobs or stay home
• how to get uni­ver­sity teach­ing expe­ri­ence with­out an advanced degree
• what area of the edu­ca­tion indus­try is about to expe­ri­ence a dra­matic increase in avail­able positions
• what Japanese resumes always include that Western ones do not — and how doing it right will help keep your appli­ca­tion on the top of the pile
• how to craft a cover letter that speaks to recruiters in their own lan­guage so your name gets put on the inter­view list
• how to make the best impres­sion on inter­view­ers to make sure you get called back
• what points you need to check on a typ­i­cal con­tract before making a commitment
• every­thing you need to know about get­ting a visa that allows you to work in Japan
• what you need to get started in Japan and how much money you’ll need to bring with you
• To help you adjust and look like a pro when you get here, I’ve included a sec­tion on what it’s like to work for a Japanese company

…and loads more. This really is the most com­pre­hen­sive guide to find­ing work in Japan ever created.

Why You Really Need This Guide

The reg­u­la­tions for secur­ing a visa and moving to Japan are avail­able on sev­eral offi­cial web­sites. But you’ll need to weed through a lot of dense and com­pli­cated infor­ma­tion in order to dis­cern what you actu­ally need to do in order to obtain a visa. Even then, it’s nearly impos­si­ble to get a work visa with­out first obtain­ing a Certificate of Eligibility, and that has to be done from Japan.

Job boards with posi­tions in Japan are widely adver­tised. These sites will tell you what jobs are avail­able, but beyond the basic qual­i­fi­ca­tions, they won’t tell you what recruiters are really look­ing for. Over the years, I’ve built rela­tion­ships with sev­eral com­pa­nies that hire for­eign work­ers, and I can tell you the best ways to impress the people who will read your resume and inter­view you.

Of course, Google can also guide you to sev­eral FAQs cov­er­ing work­ing in Japan. Some of these pages have a fair amount of infor­ma­tion, cov­er­ing every­thing from apply­ing to moving to get­ting ready to go back home.

There’s just one problem: most of them are out of date. Very out of date.

Go ahead and look for your­self. The best one (hosted on a pop­u­lar forum) was last updated in 2007, and I’ve seen others from 2002. I even found one from 1997! That’s just not going to be good enough. NOVA col­lapsed in 2007, and it’s a whole dif­fer­ent job market now. Information from over ten years ago simply isn’t going to be very useful at all today. Important changes to Japan’s immi­gra­tion laws and huge changes in the edu­ca­tional system (that directly affect anyone think­ing of teach­ing English in Japan) have occurred in just the past couple of years. More are on the horizon.

Don't Get Taken for a Ride

I’ve met my fair share of people already living in Japan that felt they were being taken advan­tage of by unscrupu­lous employ­ers. Japan’s labor laws aren’t very clear when it comes to pro­tect­ing the rights of for­eign work­ers, so most of these people found them­selves stuck in unfair con­tracts that they couldn’t get out of. Some com­pa­nies are noto­ri­ous for making mis­lead­ing and even false promises in their recruit­ing mate­ri­als and on job postings.

I’ve been telling my friends how to avoid such tac­tics, but these com­pa­nies still manage to take in new recruits each year. I wrote this guide, in part, because I got sick of seeing people make the same mis­takes year after year.

In How to Get a Job in Japan, I go into detail about how to check up on com­pa­nies, how to scru­ti­nize job post­ings, and how to spot an exploita­tive con­tract. In today’s market, these are essen­tial sur­vival skills. Some recruiters see over­seas can­di­dates as easy marks because they have little or no Japanese skills and little or no under­stand­ing of their rights under the Japanese labor laws.

Your Strategy for Success

Owning a band­saw does you no good if you don’t know how to use it. In fact, you’ll prob­a­bly just cut your thumb off.

I’m not going to stop with just giving you the links to a few job boards and telling you to check the immi­gra­tion web­site. Anyone can do that. I’m going to give you the ben­e­fit of sev­eral years of expe­ri­ence and a number of suc­cess­ful job searches to teach you how to dis­tin­guish your­self as a can­di­date and com­mu­ni­cate with poten­tial employ­ers. And those last two are the most impor­tant “qual­i­fi­ca­tions” you can have for any job — espe­cially with so many competitors.

No Hype - Just a Solid Strategy

Let’s be totally honest. I’d love to be able to tell you that How to Get a Job in Japan can help you save the day, get the girl (or guy), and be a rock star all at the same time, but this guide is not about those things (stay tuned for a future release…). What it absolutely will do is walk you through find­ing avail­able posi­tions in Japan and pre­sent­ing your­self as the ideal can­di­date to fill them. This is a strate­gic guide, and no amount of hype can equal the promise of a proven strategy.

Don't sit there in front of your computer thinking your life is going to change on its own.

Click the book image to the right to get your copy of How to Get a Job in Japan for only $14.95 on Amazon.

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• Rent the season 3 of LOST from NetFlix?
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For $14.95, you have a choice:

the same old crap you always blow your money on

… or …

the chance to make a sig­nif­i­cant change in the direc­tion and qual­ity of your life.

Change Your Life for the Better

Of course, If you already have the per­fect life, How to Get a Job in Japan is not for you.

Here are a few more reasons this guide might not suit you:

• You can’t imag­ine life with­out super-sizing.
• You like the idea of being born, grow­ing up, grow­ing old, and dying in the same place.
• Your idea of “Japanese cul­ture” is lim­ited to sushi, anime, and karate.
• Change fright­ens you.

Who can benefit from How to Get a Job in Japan ?

• Anyone who finds it reward­ing to share their knowl­edge and cul­ture with others.
• Anyone who love to learn and try new things.
• Anyone who isn’t afraid of a challenge.
• Anyone dis­ap­pointed with their job prospects after college.
• Anyone who has ever won­dered what life in other coun­tries is like.
• Anyone who has ever wanted to try pizza with mayo and squid.
• Anyone not who has ever fan­ta­sized about dong some­thing totally dif­fer­ent with their lives.
• Anyone who has ever thought that maybe the things that seem to sat­isfy every­one else won’t be enough to make them truly happy.

And of course, anyone who has ever just dreamed of living in Japan on its own merits needs to read How to Get a Job in Japan.

If that sounds like you, How to Get a Job in Japan has every­thing you need to get started and to take you straight through to the con­clu­sion of moving here. There is simply no other resource avail­able that is as com­plete, up-to-date, or filled with useful strate­gies as this guide. I give you all the tac­tics and show you how to avoid all the traps.

PS — Just so you know, I am a JET alum and have been an inter­viewer select­ing can­di­dates for the pro­gram. I devoted a whole chap­ter to acing the appli­ca­tion and inter­view for JET that you owe it to your­self to read and understand.