So the job market IS that bad in Japan for Engrish teaching?

[wangta]

Hallo all, I'm new to this board as a member but I'm a long time lurker.

I'm prepared for the usual humorous comments/sarcasm when asking about working in Japan but I'm not a newcomer to the Engrish industry in Japan. I've worked somewhere else for a while (hint, my username) and I'd like to return to Japan as I just enjoyed my time there teaching English much, much better than the place I was for the last few years.

The problem is I'm too old for JET, can't seem to find any eikaiwa jobs that don't involve absolutely shitty salaries and have 'entry level' screaming from the ads (yes, I know that eikaiwa jobs are largely 'entry' level although I've made my living from working as an Engrish teacher who takes their work seriously and can write their own curriculum etc), aren't part time gigs for people residing in Japan now, aren't demanding MAs or Phds (even senmon gakko jobs seem to demand them on the few occasions those jobs are actually advertised) etc etc.

I'm now a professional nomad but the last country I lived in won't allow people like me who have editing, research etc in their work backgrounds to do that work on the same visa as English teaching. Unlike Japan.

I'm sure even eikaiwas won't want to give me a job (not that I'd apply for most of the shit being shovelled out there now) because the Japanese have the idea that we have to fit into a box of not wanting to teach English at a certain age and should be in our own country.

I enjoy living outside that box and frankly I found out when I went home from Japan some time ago that the job market had become rigidly compartmentalised, and nobody gave a ff what I did in Japan - and they weren't run of the mill chain school jobs. My work history in Japan is a fair bit different from that of most people who did the eikaiwa thing.

The other big no no in my home country was the fact that no matter how qualified I was for the jobs I previously did at university, all the ones I applied for were either lined up for somebody who was already doing the job on a limited term contract or lined up for people who had contacts. My home city is just shithouse for open employment positions at the best of times and it was bad when I went home from Japan, and kind of horrendous now.

Any ideas on where to find job ads that don't exclude people from outside Japan and need somebody with a lot of diversity in their Japan teaching history? I suspect they don't exist these days. I'd have loved to find a website with senmon gakko jobs as I am not considered suitable for university/college jobs with no MA/Phd but actually did university teaching among other things back home.

Daijob doesn't seem right for me. My spoken Japanese is fine, my kanji reading has really dropped off. I also don't have a biz degree or something like Economics, Biochemistry etc.

Any suggestions? Thank you.

[yanpa]

Have you tried Let's Japan?

[Coligny]

Have you tried Let's Japan?

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it IS that bad...

[FG Lurker]

Your best option is probably to take any visa-sponsoring job you can get and then figure out a way to get something better once you're here.

Maybe put in a year at that "starter" job and get renewed with a 3 year visa. Set up a couple of part-time positions and quit the original job. You still have rights to the visa as long as you are working as a language teacher and can then do the self-sponsorship thing as long as you have enough income and can show you have been earning and paying taxes. That last bit is important, make sure you pay your taxes so you can take those to immigration when the visa is up.

I advise you to make sure the above is a viable path before setting out on it. My information on teaching visas is quite dated as it has been over 15 years since I have taught. As best I am aware though what I described is still possible to do.

[FG Lurker]

Have you tried Let's Japan?

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it IS that bad...

It seems to work if you go into their forums from their front page.

[wangta]

Thanks yanpa, coligny and lurker. Much appreciated. I've looked around letsjapan and it looks like those people are friendly as well but it seems I don't have any real options that my experience would fit at the moment. I should add I'm grateful I didn't get a 'Why do you want to come back to Japan at your age, you're a loser' etc that would come from a couple of other websites. The fact is I'm a nomad for life now.

I know I stayed in Japan for too long in regard to being able to once again work in higher ed in my home country. My jobs no longer exist at my old higher ed employer and the whole higher ed system has tightened for jobs despite increased enrolments.

Some time ago when I left Japan and went back home I found that the higher ed institution in other states that had jobs suitable for my areas of work just weren't interested in employing outside their state. They always had bigger populations and bigger pools of educated people to draw on. One of these was actually somebody I knew in Japan, they landed a plum role as an international students' adviser with just a BA and no previous experience, certainly no university employment. I should add they didn't do anything like working at a senmon gakko or company in Japan, just worked at an eikaiwa chain.

Lurker - it seems your advice is just about the only option for me. The trouble is I'm too experienced and have done too much for eikaiwa owners to want to employ me judging by the non response I got from Japanese employers a few yrs back when I got tired of working in the other Asian country. I had verifiable work history there w/contact numbers etc. It's going to be much harder it seems this time around.

Yet at the same time I can't get employed by Japanese higher ed institutions because of the basic MA + requirement. I understand that. What sucks more is how there are occasional good eikaiwa jobs that need a better cv but now they're asking for MAs as well.

[pragmatic]

There are lots of teaching jobs, but the pay is quite poor. The salary is enough to survive on but that is about it. You will be able to pay the bills and that will be it. The salaries have gotten so low that I am hearing from some acquaintances, they have to borrow money from home to pay bills now.

Anyway, I hope you can find a job soon

Good luck

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Wangta, judging by your Engrish, you're a fellow cuntryman...
I don't know what the Engrish teaching market is like. I do know, however, that the employment market in general in Japan is fucked. Multiples of fucked if you're over 40.
Japan is undoubtedly still a Land of Milk and Hunny....the only problem is that the milk is what employers do to squeeze the life out of their unprotected, non-union workers, while the Hunny is an adjectival description serving as an alternative to Attila-like.

[J.A.F.O]

You could always marry a lemur, get your permanent residence then go separate ways. Not sure if thats the most brilliant plan there is though. They tend to get clingy.

[wangta]

Thanks again for the advice everyone. I'm not quite desperate enough to get hooked up officially with a native in Japan or the other country I worked in for a visa.

And thanks for not lecturing me on how I have to 'go back to study' and spend thousands of dollars better used for future savings for a higher degree that is over priced and won't get me anything back home anyway because these degrees in their different versions are abundant.

Screwed down hairdo - so your cuntry is Orstralia? Where fuckwits scream 'Oi, oi, oi?' So's mine. In my nomadic career when I've gone back for breaks it's never ceased to surprise me that a cuntry that's jumped up to 28 million people and counting in about a decade hasn't produced an equivalent growth in industries and jobs.

I know mining is big, so's the higher ed industry but it seems to me the more Orstralia grows, the less employment opportunities it has unless you're willing to go off and pay 1,000 bucks a week to rent a prefab house in the desert for the privilege of being a miner I know that electricians and plumbers, etc are in demand but I don't see myself learning those trades and being successful at them.

As an ex higher ed employee I'd also love to know why the big jump in overseas students for over a decade seems to have resulted in big program/job cuts. I suppose the Aussie jobs are in making coffee, serving at restaurants, taking calls from angry customers at phone call centres etc. I'm also fascinated when I'm at home to turn on the tv and hear a Pommy manager being interviewed all about what's going on at the water companies, electricity companies etc. Are Aussies now so incapable of doing management jobs that we have to import managers from the UK?

[yanpa]

I'm also fascinated when I'm at home to turn on the tv and hear a Pommy manager being interviewed all about what's going on at the water companies, electricity companies etc. Are Aussies now so incapable of doing management jobs that we have to import mangers from the UK?

Bloody hell, things must be bad on the West Island if you need to import managers from that hotbed of Incompetent Utilities'R'Us

[wangta]

True. I mean, I honestly don't know why there aren't more jobs in the land of oi, oi, oi because increased populations are supposed to mean increased social capital. I know other Aussies are wondering why we have to import so many Poms and give them the positions that Aussies could do but things are never simple.

I'd say it's got a lot to do with state govts and their connections. The whole 'outsourcing' thing which usually ends up being about giving contracts to companies with links to govts and politicians. Individuals are brought from outside to do what the natives could do. 'Consultants' are employed to tell us what we already know, again there's the link with govts and their networks.

I'm not at all opposed to real foreign investment and increased skilled migrant intakes if there's actually the demand for skilled overseas workers. But I honestly can't say that Aussies lack the educational levels etc. Higher education had a big expansion when I was working at a uni and that was over a decade ago, course places were given a big hike, and the proportion of Aussies under 50 yrs old with uni degrees and technical/further education degrees is higher than countries like the US.

What do you think, screwed down hairdo?

[Russell]

How about a job as a wedding minister?

(OK, that does not work if you need a visa first, right?)

[wangta]

Yes but thanks for that! Your suggestion was better than "Oh go and spend thousands of your savings on getting another degree - flooding the market with higher degreed people is guaranteed to get you a job!"

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Are Aussies now so incapable of doing management jobs that we have to import managers from the UK?

Er...yes.

Actually, I think Aussie managers are the best in the world, especially if they're blokes. (Shielas tend to be a bit more zealous because people don't expect them to be able to do the job in the first place and they need to not only prove they can, but also show they do it better...)
I think Aussies are probably the laziest people on the planet, which bodes well for the office because everyone wants to get out and there's no fucking around after knock-off like there is in Japan. the Untied States and Eewrope. Hustling is fucking mindless.
Mind you, I'm a total corporate failure and have been out of work for years and mostly have to beg to survive, so perhaps I'm not the best person to take career advice from.
I wish I could become a drug dealer, but I don't fancy the idea of plugging some poor cunt with a bullet if a deal goes wrong...