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Working holiday visa 2015/4/1 17:02
Hello guys ,

My name is Aaron , I am 24 years old and I am currently working at a hotel in Japan where I am almost coming up to my year contract , and visa end.

The company I am working for have agreed to sponsor me on a working visa , and have told me that when I arrived back to England , to send off all necessary documents etc and they will apply for the COE for me

Basically , I have no degree , but I have experience. I worked in a hotel for three years from the age of 15 , I then went to study travel and tourism at college for two years and then I studied hospitality for a year at college. I have certificates for both of these courses. Also , after this I had a job as a Travel agent for three years , before coming to Japan for one year to work in a the hotel that I am in.

Based on said experience , I was just wondering what people thought the chances were of me being granted a humanities visa to work in a hotel , without a degree.

Any responses are appreciated :)

Arigatou!
by aaron4reds  

Re: Working holiday visa 2015/4/2 08:10
Three years, three years, and one year, so your work experience adds up to seven years. And you have relevant college study, though unfortunately it is not a bachelor's degree (total of three years).

I would say you have a chance, but the guideline for work visa based solely on work experience is usually ten years, so you are not quite fulfilling that. Since the employer is willing to give it a try, I would say let them, and see what happens. Best wishes.
by AK rate this post as useful

Re: Working holiday visa 2015/4/2 08:49
Thank you for the reply AK :)

I seem to recall reading somewhere that study goes towards your amount of years experience as well as actually working.
So , if this is true , hopefully it should be enough to see it through.

I've also heard , that with the Olympics in 2020 etc , prime minister Abe is pushing really hard for foriegn staff , and now is one of the better times to get into the country as they are being a little bit more lenient , with the foriegn workers push.

So there may be some room for leeway :) Fingers crossed anyway
by aaron4reds rate this post as useful

Re: Working holiday visa 2015/4/2 15:50
Three years, three years, and one year, so your work experience adds up to seven years. And you have relevant college study, though unfortunately it is not a bachelor's degree (total of three years).

There are 2 other things that I think you should also consider.

I'm going to assume that all 7 years of your work experience were full time, however, if any of it was part-time, that will not be counted. I have a friend who was in a similar situation to you 3 years ago, and his application was refused at first because they didn't recognise 1 year he spent working part-time as working experience.

Secondly, I suspect that you and AK are referring to very different things when you both mentioned college. What is very important is whether or not your 2 qualifications from college are Further Education or Higher Education qualifications. From the time-frame you have given, I'm going to assume that you left school at 15, and worked full time for 3 years, and then went to college to do a further education course, which is only equivalent to an American or Japanese High School education.

From what I've read, they often take vocational education into account as work experience for high skilled jobs that are in high demand, such as software engineers. I would guess that even if they would take education into account for your type of position, they wouldn't accept the equivalent of high school education as work experience.

It seems that you don't meet the requirements, but we can only speculate. As your employers want to sponsor you, I would suggest that you go ahead with the application, but if you're very serious about living and working in Japan, you may want to look into how you can gain more experience or study towards a degree in case your application is denied.
by Umechan (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Working holiday visa 2015/4/2 17:16
Umechan,

I am not saying that 7 plus 3 add up to 10, thus sufficient. 7 years (yes I forgot to mention that that should be full-time) is close enough, and considering that the original poster has had some vocational training in that field (I took it to be that; not as "college"), I just feel that he has a chance. That is all I am saying. Fingers crossed, yes.
by AK rate this post as useful

Re: Working holiday visa 2015/4/2 19:29
Thank you both for your replies. You both have really good points!

All I can do is apply and see what happens :)
If I fail , I will then look into going to university as I have already been offered a place in September to do a bachelor's in tourism management , then I will try again

But that's four years away , a lot can change in that time. So I'm hoping that I might have a chance :)
by aaron4reds rate this post as useful

Re: Working holiday visa 2015/4/2 20:21
Thank you both for your replies. You both have really good points!

All I can do is apply and see what happens :)
If I fail , I will then look into going to university as I have already been offered a place in September to do a bachelor's in tourism management , then I will try again

But that's four years away , a lot can change in that time. So I'm hoping that I might have a chance :)
by aaron4reds rate this post as useful

Re: Working holiday visa 2015/4/3 03:06
I am not saying that 7 plus 3 add up to 10, thus sufficient. 7 years (yes I forgot to mention that that should be full-time) is close enough, and considering that the original poster has had some vocational training in that field (I took it to be that; not as "college"), I just feel that he has a chance. That is all I am saying. Fingers crossed, yes.

I'm not saying your wrong, but judging from your profile, you seem to be an ethnic Japanese that was born in Japan, and therefore I expect that there are certain things that you would not understand about the British education system and British society, and to be fair, many Americans and mainland Europeans are also not familiar with them.

I mentioned full time work only because the OP mentioned that they started working at 15, and a fair few british people wouldn't start working from that age, as it can be difficult finding work straight out of school.

In terms of education, I think it would be reasonable if immigration didn't take that into account. In the UK, we can leave school at 15 or 16, which is 2 years earlier than American and Japan, people who want to continue their education will either continue at school to do their a levels, or go to college, which will give them an equivalent of a high school education. From their they can enter University, which is what Americans would typically consider a college education, and is equivalent to daigaku. Maybe you consider unnecessery to bring this up, but I have seen discussions on this forum between British and American people that have very different understandings of what a college education means, and the British person has often left with an incorrect understanding that they have a University level qualification, when they infact have a qualification equivalent to high school education.

I'm honestly not trying to persuade they OP, I just think they need to have an understanding of what they requirements are, and what their qualifications are worth by international standards. I really do wish them the best of luck, but to be honest, if UK college vocational qualifications that are equivalet to a highschool education count towards the visa requirements, you could argue that it is very unfair to Americans, who have to attend school for an additional 2 years. I can only guess what will happen, but if the OP's aplication gets rejected, they can forget about living in Japan, or be bitter and blame the system, or they can do whatever they can to improve themselves and meet the requirements, and to be fair to them, they do seem interested in continuing their education if they can't get a visa.
by Umechan (guest) rate this post as useful

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