I want to work in Japan...

Hello everyone.

I'm a 19-year-old student from a non-English speaking EU country. I am a fluent English speaker (I have a Cambridge Advanced English certificate and working on Cambridge Proficiency in English certificate now). I have learnt English since I was 3 years old, however none of my formal education was primarily in English. I also speak several other European languages at an intermediate level, and obviously my native language (which is a minor European language). I am also learning Japanese, though I am currently still a beginner, but I believe I can be at least at a conversational level, if not higher, by the time I finish my degree.

I am currently studying for a degree in Graphic & Media Technology, which basically covers graphic design, paper & pulp-related technology, printing technology and IT (front end web development, etc.). After I finish the degree I may or may not (depending on my grades) have an option to study at a master's level in this field - though I don't know how useful that would be for getting a job in Japan.

So, I would really like to work in Japan one day. It has been my dream for many years now and I have thoroughly researched Japan and even visa options since. I am not just another manga/anime fan who thinks Japan is cool, I am really interested in Japan and its culture and the more I read about Japan, the more I feel like it's a great fit for me. I know Japan is not perfect, but I still feel I want to live there.

From what I have read so far, there are several options, though I am not sure if all of these are viable. This is where I'd like some input from people who have a better understanding of the Japanese job market and immigration system. Please note I am willing to work in any area of Japan, be it urban or rural.
1) Teaching English. This would be my preferred option, though as I understand it, not being a native speaker might be an issue at getting a work visa. Would English language certificates (like the Cambridge ones) help at all? What about doing a CELTA course? This is expensive, but if this would greatly improve my chances, I'd be willing to pay for it. I'd even be willing to consider getting a master's degree in English teaching, however I would only go this route if I was sure this would be accepted by the immigration office (and potential employers). I am also absolutely willing to work in either an urban or a rural area, which might give me more options with employers (though this doesn't solve the problem with the immigration office).
2) Getting a graduate job in my field. Ideally, this would be a design position, but I'm also willing to work as a front-end developer or any other job that I might be able to get, and also get a visa for. Is this a viable option if I learn fluent Japanese by the time I graduate? Would a master's degree be beneficial? I know these jobs are not generally advertised for foreigners, but if I speak Japanese well enough, somebody might give me a chance, especially if I stand out in the portfolio area (in case of design), grades or my knowledge of several languages.
3) Get several years of work experience, then try to get a job in Japan. Obviously I prefer the previous option as I would get to Japan sooner, but I am very comitted to this goal and I'd be willing to work in my home country (or elsewhere in EU, since the job market here is very bad) for several years to gain some exeperience, and then search for a job in Japan. This would also give me an option to really master Japanese by the time I look for a job.
4) Open a business in Japan. I know there is an investor visa for people who start a business and invest at least 5 million yen. I could get 5-10 million yen in savings by the time I graduate, and maybe borrow some more from my parents. The business I would like to open is either and English school, or a design agency. Again, the problem I see here is the fact that I don't have any experience of running a business. And obviously that you have to actually earn money with your business as you don't have a set salary, of course. So this is really a last resort option, though I could definitely see myself running a small language school or design agency eventually.

I know there are many threads like this, but I would really appreciate advice regarding my exact situation. Thank you in advance.

English teaching is probably the easiest option here.

Generally, Japanese companies only want to hire native English speakers, and they advertise based on that (all our teachers are native speakers!). Some companies won't care, but most will. Nevertheless, if you can show you have good English skills you should be able to get a job with a bit of searching around. Some English teaching qualification would be all to the good though.

Regarding working in your field, you have to think about things from the perspective of the employer. You will never have the Japanese language skills of a native Japanese - not until you've lived in Japan 20-odd years. So, you're kind of an unknown quantity for Japanese companies. You're more likely to misunderstand and get stuff wrong. This isn't a criticism of you - just a statement of fact for any 2nd language speaker. You also require visa sponsorship, which no Japanese national does. This is a significant expense and extra work for the company. Unless you're working in a priority area, or have experience which the companies can't find in the local population, then there's really nothing in it for them to employ a freshly graduated foreigner.

The best thing might be, if you're from a country with a working-holiday agreement, you could come across, get established, and look for teaching or other jobs from in the country. That would be much easier.

If you want a job in your field, you will have to be fluent in Japanese first and foremost, at the JLPT N2 level at the very least. Then you will also need a bit of luck to find an employer willing to hire you, but probably not as much as the post above suggests.

do not work in your home country

Straight away work in Japan, unless you are super qualified you would have to start at the entry level
Or study in a vocational school or uni in japan followed by working there

English language teaching is the best for you. Unless you have a passion for making animation. You can apply through your embassy. The pay if you go through a private teaching agency is lesser but unlike an agency you can apply anytime you want. (Embassy deadline for 2015, closed 2 weeks ago)

Firas may be right, I might be overly pessimistic. If you're in the country, and the Japanese company can meet you and have a face to face interview, it may be easier. However, sight unseen, I think there's little reason for them to employ a foreigner than a native Japanese.

Good luck with that, a foreign friend of mine got a master degree here in Tokyo, he knows Japanese and is passionate about drawing/graphics/game design, then he applied in ALL known and unknown game companies and got hired by NONE of them. This brings me to the next valuable point mentioned in this thread:

" I think there's little reason for them to employ a foreigner than a native Japanese."

Which is exactly why they won't bother hiring a foreigner in the graphics/game design industry.
In general there's zero point in applying for a position that can be done by a Japanese. Even the law specifies that working visa (especially the "Humanities" visa) is given to individuals with special (aka foreign) skills and abilities. My advice is to think how to emphasize on your "foreignness" and look for companies which value that.

If we're going the anecdotal route, I know someone who got a graphic design job in Japan without even a bachelor's degree (she has the French equivalent of an associate's, and some experience).

Thank you all for your replies. From what I've gathered, most say that teaching English is my best chance, however, I have heard it's impossible or at least very unlikely for a non-native English speaker to get a visa, even if a company is willing to hire me. Is that true? I have heard if you have some other type of visa (working holiday, spouse, etc.) it's no problem getting an English teaching job but to be able to get a visa if you're not from an English speaking country or have 12 years of formal education in English is a lot harder.

Sadly I'm from a country that doesn't have a working holiday agreement, and also isn't in the JET programme. So visa sponsorship is a must. Does the immigration office care about certificates such as CELTA? One thing that also comes to mind is that I may be able to get qualified as a preschool teacher (bachelor's degree level) or vocational teacher in my field (postgraduate qualification). Would any of these help, perhaps I could get a job in an international preschool or school or something, especially if combined with a CELTA certificate? But again, I am not sure how the employers and immigration office view these.

I feel it's a shame that we non-native speakers have such a hard time finding a job as an English teacher. I don't see an issue if a person is really fluent in English, and surely a non-native speaker who has teaching qualifications, experience of learning a foreign language and possibly even a linguistics degree can do at least as well, if not better, than a native English speaker with a degree in an unrelated field and no experience whatsoever?

As for working in my field, would getting a master's degree in Japan help? Somebody mentioned a friend who was still unable to get a job in Japan despite getting a master's in Japan, however I'm really flexible, I'm not expecting a good salary (just to get by is enough for me), hard working and willing to live in any part of Japan, not just Tokyo (and a few other major cities). Honestly I'd be willing to take any job (so long as it's legal and not sex work or something like that) and work my way up from there. I just need someone to give me a chance but it seems it's practically impossible if you're not a native English speaker or perhaps in IT.

Just a little side note, my degree also includes front end (web) development. I know there are many foreign developers and engineers living in Japan. Would this be a feasible option? I don't know how employers and immigration would treat my degree as it's not a computer science degree though.

The first thing you need to do is to come to Japan for at least 2 weeks, preferably one month.
What Japan is in your mind and what it is in reality may collide violently..and you may not like the real Japan at all.

While I was in a college in central France I had the opportunity to spent a whole summer in Finland on a suspension bridge building site.
Every second weekend one of the Finnish students on the site (we lived in a trailer, free of charge) took me to the homes of various relatives and friends..

Near the end all of us the foreign students in the area went on a bus trip all the way past the Arctic Circle.
I loved every minute of these 3 months...

The next summer another student in my class went to Finland.. He came back very upset; he hated it..
But then he had only left his birth region to go to the college and was home sick there.. (we only went home on school holidays) and couldn't speak even basic English..

Unlike him I was used from the youngest age to live with different relatives besides my parents, and to travel to many places..
My parents took me around our region many times a year..starting when I was quite young..
I lived away from them during the week from the age of 11 on..

At 14 I went to Paris,then London the next year (both times without my parents), then Barcelona the next(with my mom, in a bus tour) and we both visited many regions of France..again in a bus tour

Even if you have travelled a lot, living in a different country permanently is very different from being there on a holiday...you are no longer a guest, but a competitor for jobs..
When I moved to North-America I could read and write English and thought that I spoke English well enough...but in fact I had no clues about all sorts of idioms they never teach in schools..

The formal education I got in my birth country was dismissed..It took me 10 years and a lot of luck to finally get a good job..

Evie, are you Dutch by any chance? If so, I think you can still apply for a JET position. If not, forget about my question, you just strike me as one :)

In a previous post you mention that you can come up with 5 to 10 million yen. 5 million yen should be somewhere around 35.000 Euro. I think there are language schools that would cost around 5000 euro per year. Calculate about 800 to 900 per month for living as a student, meaning to live budget minded, and that would add about 10.000. A flight would be 600 euro, but lets say 1000.

For a total price of 16.000 Euro you will get:
- a full year experience of living in Japan
- the possibility to reach JLPT 2 level (if you study well)
- a full year to network with people, companies, etc
- a full year to find an English teaching job in case the networking fails to land a job.

In the worst case your experience in Japan will be good for your resume when job hunting in your own country, plus an amazing year abroad.

Hello Evie,

You come across as almost obsessed with the idea of living in Japan. Is this correct?

All I would say to you is you need to go to Japan for at least 3 to 4 months, and travel around to different areas to get to know if you will really like it, or alternatively stay one month in the spring, one month in the summer and one in autumn, otherwise you will be just projecting an internal fantasy onto the country that will not match its reality, and this goes for any country.

Reading about culture and life is not the same as seeing it and experiencing it. I know you know this, but you really need to experience it before you make any long term commitments. There are plenty of negatives in Japan, and things that might irritate you a lot. Japan has a lot of strange dichotomies, which are not seen much in other countries to the same black and white opposites in Japan, and the only way to know if you will feel right there is to go through the 3 month test.

What I mean by this is many people go on holiday somewhere for a few weeks, and fall in love with a place (infatuation is a more accurate term). They only see the nice things, the beautiful things, the likeable things, and then they return home and fantasise even more with blinkered eyes. This is dangerous if they then decide to quit their job, sell their house, and move to this new country gparadiseh. Many times they can find they hate it.

There are three main stages (the time scales can vary a bit depending on the person):

1. Week 1 to week 4, they only see the good, the beautiful, the cool things, and they love it.
2. Weeks 5 to week 9, they start to see all the bad, ugly, stupid, illogical things etc.
3. Weeks 10 – 13 they either find a balance and acclimatise to accept the negatives, and not fixate on them, and dwell more on the positives, and find inner peace, or, they become ultra critical and negative and go home bitter and angry or stay trapped in the country and remain bitter and negative and play out a victim role. Youfll find immigrants like this in every city of the world.

You can find these stages pretty much with any country, and you need to experience the good and bad before you move there, or you might end up very unhappy and waste a lot of money. Itfs better to see Japan, warts and all, before you put your heart into it.

Can I ask, why the fixation with English? Have you ever thought of teaching your own language? Seriously, not all Japanese want to learn English. There are 127 million Japanese, and I can guarantee wherever you are from, there are some Japanese who want to learn your mother tongue and your culture from a native and will pay for this experience. Small specialist language schools for your native tongue would most likely help with the visa issues.

However, I would still choose to take at least 3 months travelling in Japan (with eyefs wide open) to see how you really feel in your heart about things. If you still feel the deep desire, then you can make it happen, and it will happen. You can have a great life there if this is what you really want.

I hope this is of some help.

I agree with Isogu

Personally I love Japan and know I could live there; Unfortunately, while I have a good pension, I couldn't afford to have 2 homes plus travelling expenses etc. and of course it would be very hard--if not impossible--to get a visa

I definitely feel much more at home in Japan than in North-America where I live.

One of my best friends in Canada (we were born in the same European country and met at work, of all places) made fun of me whenever I said that Japan had so many things in common with Europe..

Then she had the opportunity to go there for several weeks. Within days she e-mailed me that she agreed with me.

As I said in the previous post, if someone has trouble with English, I try French. It has worked in Japan..A couple of young Japanese that couldn't make a basic sentence in English were much more fluent in French.

I met a Japanese guy one day at a party in my Canadian hometown. He amazed me by his knowledge of French writers, artists, singers etc. He had never been to France, but learned all sorts of things in school, saw French movies in cinemas, French singers on TV etc.

Eventually we became friends..and have travelled together to our respective birthplaces many times..

I assume that you know about the Dutch "town" in Japan..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huis_Ten_Bosch_theme_park

Thank you again for your kind replies.

Obviously, I already know living abroad isn't the same as visiting as a tourist. However, I have thoroughly researched different aspects of Japan and I think the culture, especially the working environment, would suit me very well (I am very hardworking and many people in my country would consider me a workaholic, so working long hours really isn't an issue). If not, I can still return to my home country after a couple of years, and I can gain some international experience which would benefit me back home.

That's why I would prefer to do this while I'm young, I have no house, job or my own family, so it's really just me and I can risk a little more. I don't want to live my whole life thinking about how I could have done something (or at least tried to), but didn't. I'd prefer to do it, even if it turns out I don't like it so much, and end up with some experience and memories.

Sadly, I am not Dutch, or from any other country that takes part in the JET programme. So it isn't an option for me. I have actually tried to find schools in Japan that teach my native language and I was only able to find one in Tokyo (though it's entirely possible I missed some that weren't so easy to find), and since it's a minor language, I doubt that this school needed any more teachers. But maybe there are some big schools that tend to offer many different languages and would be open to adding a new one? I know we have languages schools in my country that offer many different languages, even minor ones.

As I said, if after some research I really wanted to do it and thought it was plausible, I would be even willing to invest all my savings and open a little school myself, and perhaps teach both my native language and English or something. But then again, I would obviously need to satisfy immigration as well as the market (the customers), so it isn't something to take lightly and would require years of preparation.

So have you actually been to Japan or not?

Speaking as the wife of a guy who just opened an English school (he's Japanese), trust me when I say it would be extremely difficult for you to do it. I'd never say impossible because where there's a will there's a way, but the foreigners who have opened schools here have all lived here for a long time and have a support network of Japanese to help them out (usually in the form of a spouse). It isn't even that you don't have business experience; it is going through the real estate company to find a space, setting everything up, dealing with taxes and registering the business, etc. will all be in fairly difficult Japanese. You'll have to work with sign installers, logo makers, etc. to create a brand and get things printed, and that's not even the hardest job, which is getting students! And you'll need Japanese to talk with them to explain everything, and Japanese to write out the contract detailing payment and all the legal jargon, insurance just in case something happens with a student, etc. etc.

We've lived in Japan for 6 years and have an extensive network to draw from, so we've gotten students pretty quickly, although we are far from full. Some schools get 10 students the first year at the most, 10 the next... I just think it is extremely unrealistic to think you'll just waltz into Tokyo and open a school. There is a ton more to it and sinking all your savings into something that has a good chance of failing the first year is not a good decision.

Spend the money on a Japanese school. It will give you the tools to learn the language, network, see if you actually like living in Japan versus just visiting, and give you a more accurate perspective of the job market. Then, once you're more grounded in Japanese, try to open a school.

gHowever, I have thoroughly researched different aspects of Japan and I think the culture, especially the working environment, would suit me very well (I am very hardworking and many people in my country would consider me a workaholic, so working long hours really isn't an issue).h

Well you are correct there. The work ethic is, let me just say, a little obsessive, but the professionalism and customer service of the Japanese is also the highest in the world, in my opinion, as I believe youfll find out for yourself.

The only warning I will give you is that although the Japanese will appreciate a hard worker, and especially a skilled and perfect worker, as a foreigner you will sadly come across the reality that the Japanese do not trust people with jobs, not even their own countrymen, as they can be a bit neurotic, checking and double checking everything, depending on the industry or service area.

This unfortunately is applied even more to foreigners, who once employed are often given the most menial tasks to reduce the risk of them screwing up, even when they might be highly qualified with a degree or masters, or abundant experience, the trust issue comes up, as well as the need for perfection. So, many foreigners who are very well trained, and skilled with good characters, can often (depending on the industry) get the most dull and minor positions and very minor responsibilities, and still get their work checked over again and again for fear that eperfectionf might not be attained.

Some Japanese industries and services are far worse than others, and some more lenient and relaxed, but you need to know this might happen, and itfs not you they are personally mistrusting, itfs just a cultural trait based on the desire to achieve perfect results (and not screw up) and all possible risks must be minimised, so donft be offended if you come across this reality.

You seem very shy about telling us what your native tongue is? Ifm sure if you say, there are many who can help search for links etc. You come across as well grounded and out to take advantage of lifefs opportunities.

However, please do check Japan out first. You can never tell how you will feel about things until you personally experience them. Most books and websites donft tell you all the negatives, but just the positives or neutral things, much like this website. You need to at least taste the whole thing before you jump in with two feet. If I were in your shoes, Ifd go next spring, enjoy the cherry, plum and almond blossoms, then experience the rainy season and the steamy summer humidity, and then see the spectacular autumn foliage in the clear autumn days.

Ifd also keep a good diary, writing down your thoughts and emotions. Itfs amazing how much one can forget unless itfs written down, and it also stops the mind from fading out bad experiences when they are written down, so you can then be more honest to yourself and factual about how you really felt on this or that day etc.

All the best!