My plan to live in Japan

My plan is to go to a language school for a year in early 2010. I noticed that school sessions are only 4 hours in a day. I want to utilize the remaining time I have out of school by taking a part-time job teaching English. I�fm 43 years old male from L.A. California. My profession is in the IT field. I have no college degree nor teaching experience. Since I don�ft have either one, Is it going to be hard to find an employer that would hire me? I�fm only at JLPT 3 level. Also, after six months of studying, My plan is also to look for a job in my field of profession. Are my chances very slim that an employer will petition/sponsor me and change my student visa to a working visa? This is my plan on how to emigrate myself to Japan without getting married to a Japanese national. Is this a not so smart idea? Do you have another plan you could suggest perhaps? By the way, I know the economy is soooo bad now and won�ft see any big change until 3rd or 4th quarter of 2010. I just wanted your take on this. What would you do if you were me? Thanks.

- Those on Pre-college visa (language school) are allowed only up to 20 hours of work per week, and even for that, you need to ask for a separate permit from Immigration, and you need to wait at least a few months into your study even to apply (you need to maintain good grades and attendance).

- For doing part-time work on your Pre-college visa, you might have some chance as you have your Pre-college visa status already.

- But for later, I must say you will face serious difficulties. In order to be eligible for employer-sponsored work-permitting visa, you would need to have either (1) bachelor's degree or (2) at least several years of relevant work experience - meaning, if you want to teach English, you need to have had at least 3 years or so of English teaching experience, and if you want to go into IT, I think you need to have many more years - at leat 5, 6 years or 10, I've heard - years of experience in IT.

- So lacking a degree, your chance will solely depend on whether some IT company finds your IT experience so attractive, more attractive than the normal Japanese person's resume, that they are willing to push through with your visa application based solely on your experience. Particularly under the current economic conditions (and seeing your Japanese level) I don't think that is going to be easy at all.

I forgot to mention that I do have over 10 years of IT desktop support experience and have a Microsoft certification called MCSE.

AK is right. At 43 I imagine you have a lot of work experience, but you would have to impress the hell out of a future employer for them to go to the trouble of sponsoring your visa with the added complication of not having a degree. Without a high level of Japanese (and I'm afraid you probably won't reach Level 1 on 4 hours a day for 6 months), that seems unlikely, especially in the current economic climate where people are still being laid off. Being in Nagoya rather than Tokyo where most of the IT jobs for foreigners are would add to the difficulty.

By all means do a job search while you are here, but don't get your hopes up too high.

Sorry, I don't know why I thought you wanted to be in the Nagoya area- I must have been confusing your post with something else I had been reading. If you are able to look for jobs through the big IT recruiters in Tokyo you will have more options than in a smaller city.

It's funny to read your post because I have simmilar plans.

Also I do not have a bachelor and no where near 10 years of work experience since I am 29.

But do keep in mind that if your applying for a professional visa you need a bachelor or 10 years of experience OR certifications at a simmilar level or above as Bachelor.

You have MCSE and a ton of experience .. that should be good for a visa.

Only problem is finding a employer.

If I might give a sugestion.
There's a International IT job fair about twice a year in Tokyo.
you could look that up.
As they specifically look for international professionals

any questions or want to talk IT.
send me a message (martijn@tinyworld.nl)

I'm confused with the posts - are you seeking to work in IT in Japan or are you going to school to study Japanese with the desire to make a little extra on the side by teaching English?

I'll assume the latter since that's what I got from the very first post.

You can do what many gaijin do - just teach english on your own. There are a few websites that hook-up teachers with students. take advantage of that.

It can pay well, but the market is a bit saturated and due to the bad economy, the numbers of students has drop a bit.

Since your goal is taking Japanese, go for it! make that extra money as it comes but focus on having a good time in Japan. Learn the language well - once you have Japanese under your belt, Japan - job wise, become a hell of a lot easier.

Yes, eventually I wanted to work in Japan as an IT person. I know there's no way that I could become JLPT 1 or fluent in such a short amount of time. I forgot to mention that I wanted to work for foreign company in Japan that wouldn't require Japanese as the main communication but I still believe that some form of Japanese is needed regardless. I'm just hoping to be close to JLPT 2 by the time I finish studying at a language school. Speaking of foreign company, any truth that some of these companies do not require Japanese as the main means of communication? Thanks for everyone who've responded.

Well with the current economy...

Other factors include:

1. They tend to want to hire people who already have some type of visa in Japan, (eg spouse, those with Permanent residency or those who already have work visas from other companies).
2. Many IT people already in Japan, (I've known many who quit because it wasn't good anymore).
3. Companies wanting to hiring younger people, though this varies from company to company.
4. No bachelors degree and the prospect of the company having to go through the extra process of sponsoring a work visa with more documentation..
5. The bad economy again.

The main hurtles, visa sponsorship without a degree and without a current proper visa to work in Japan full time.

My husband (Japanese) works in IT, in the Tokyo headquarters of a foreign company (called "gaishikei" in Japanese), and he moved from another foreign company two years before. While English is theoretically the working language of these companies, the more Japanese you speak, the more attractive you are to employers. There has been a huge influx of Indian IT people in the last few years, but when companies started to downsize when the economy started to tank last year, they were often the first to be laid off.

They were first to go because of their lack of Japanese language ability? Even if they're Japanese is fluent, They would still be let go regardless since the economy tank. Is that what you mean?

If you have a job at the moment, you are taking a bit of a risk coming to Japan with the economy being so bad. Have you thought of staying in the States and studying Japanese while working and then coming over here if and when the economy improves. A lot of the English speaking companies are laying off people and off-shoring a lot of there operations at the moment. I do not want to discourage you but there are some foreboding head winds at the moment. The cost of living here is also quite expensive, you need to bear that in mind if you do not have sufficient savings. As far as getting the Visa is required most of the big companies usually require degrees for IT jobs as do a lot of the English language schools.

Can someone explain how Japan's economy is not doing well. It can't be any worse then here in the U.S.!
It seems your plan to move there and learn first is a better bet then staying here to learn. An employeer could take into consideration the fact that you have already been living there for a while.

Unemployment in Japan is at its highest level since World War 2. When the US economy crashed, the Japanese economy (and many other countries' economies) went with it- the failure of Lehman brothers and other US financial institutions hit the Japanese financial sector hard, and like the US, there aren't any firm signs of recovery yet.

It may not be worse than the US, but it is not a lot better either. Consumer spending is down, companies are suffering/going bankrupt, people are still being laid off.

Basically if the US has an economic downturn, because it is the world's largest economy, you can assume that the rest of the world has an economic downturn too. Did you think the US was the only country suffering?

My father's friend that work for the IBM in Japan recommend you do the following.

Become an employee of Japan company in the states and/or U.S. company with a branch in Japan, then, transfer to Japan. Other wise he believe nonetheless you have ten years of experience will not mean anything to any Japan companies whether you live in Japan or not.Also my father who is the VP of high tech in Silicon Valley says if you have Cisco or Oracle with Microsoft certification would be very attractive to employers in Japan.