Any chance of working without degree?

Hi there,

We are recently back from Japan holiday and love the place, both my wife and I do.

We would move there in an instant, however not sure if I would ever get in for work.

My wife has a Masters in Business with years of corporate marketing experience so we assume thats no problem. However I have no degree, just an IT Diploma with 15 years IT experience, a lot of it as a self employed IT Consultant. Does experience (with references maybe?) in the IT field at all make up for the lack of a degree?

I guess I could study an education degree and also have the option of teaching english which would make it easier, but its a lot of work just for the piece of paper if I could possibly get in without it.

Thanks!

Your experience would most likely meet Japan Immigration requirements for a working visa for people without degrees. Hopefully the market will start picking up soon, but now is not the best time to be looking for work for people in IT and business.

Until the crash last year there were a lot of IT jobs even for people without fluent Japanese, however there are a lot lfewer openings now
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There tends not to be a lot of jobs in marketing for non-Japanese, but if both you and your wife can reach a reasonable level of spoken Japanese, you will be more competitive and the employment market may have started to pick up by then as well. Good luck with job searching!

Thanks for that.

Its all early days, we've just fell in love with the place and the only way we can see us getting a better, longer experience is with a working visa, and we are too old for a working holiday visa (31 and 33).

We'd both settle for less qualified work if we could get in, our main concern is whether we'd even get the chance.

Without the local language ability, the only "less qualified" work I can imagine for your wife would be to teach English at English conversation schools (I assume both of you are native English speakers). If one is a native English speaker, then a bachelor's degree (= immigration requirement as educational background) is the only other condition, of course provided that she finds a company/school interested in hiring her and thus sponsoring her for a working visa so that she can work for them.

With that, initially, you will be able "stay" (not work) in Japan with her under "dependent" visa status, under which you can apply for a separate permission to engage in part-time work (limited in terms of number of hours per week, I believe).

In the meantime, if you pick up the local language (and if the economy picks up) there might be chance for you in IT with that experience eventually. This also goes for your wife as well - not much job opportunities in marketing for non-Japanese (speakers), so if both of you want to continue in your career paths, learning the language would be the key.

We are both native speakers. Well, she came to Australia as a 6mth old baby so I guess since she could only say goo goo and ga ga in Chinese before then she would be classified as a native english speaker!

We do both intend learning much better Japanese, even if we don't go back. Or even if we only ever go back for holidays, we would love to be able to speak better Japanese for then.

I am looking into a recently introduced fast tracked Bachelor of Education for those trained in other areas (IT) which will give me the equiv of a 4yr degree in 18mths, so I assume that would be quite beneficial. It would give me secondary school teaching qualifications in applied science specialising in Computing (in Australia obviously)

IT and marketing were some of the hardest hit industries.

You can get a job but you should send your resumes out as a probe to see what kind of offers you get before making any solid plans.

Even if you can not get a working visa for yourself based on your IT experience, if your wife gets a job here you'll be able to get a dependent's visa which will allow at least part time work and if you're in IT probably "secret" full time work, that is to say, not under the table but with hours under reported but a higher salary.

Thanks for more comments. Just a few thoughts based on what you said additionally -

If your wife is and looks Asian (I know this should not matter but) she might have less easy time finding an English teaching position at conversation schools, particulary now that the hiring situation is not that great considering the economy. I knew a couple, both of them native English speakers, but the lady was originally from a SE Asian country (a refegee to NZ when she was an infant). She was trying to find an English teaching position. Even when the economy was better than now, she had a bit of "credibility" issue with some English language schools unfortunately, though she got a job in the end.

Concerning the educational program you are looking at: please be sure that it will be a bachelor's degree from an accredited university/institute.

I don't want to discourage you from moving to Japan, but, well, since you do sound like you have fabulous careers now where you are, and changing to another country is not quite simple :) things need to be considered realistically... Good luck with everything, and please do plan to come back to (at least) visit again! :)

I understand where you are coming from with her looking asian. I guess it could possibly be a problem. It shouldn't be, she's smarter, better educated and more qualified than I am!!

The uni degree is through a major Uni here and all above board. Its designed to encourage mature age people to get into teaching here in Australia. Theres a lot less of the 'unaccredited' degrees etc in Aus than there are in the US - I get all the junk emails about those ones!

Thanks for your comments, and yes, whether short term or long term, we will be back in Japan without a doubt! I hate flying but I'd do the 9 hour flight to Japan anytime just to go back.

Since I intend to be able to speak some better Japanese soon, is it allowable to pickup private clients to teach english to on a dependant visa? ie cash in hand casual tye stuff?

Dependent status alone only allows you to "live" in Japan with your spouse, nothing more. That's the intention. For comparison, if you engage in such "cash" transaction business while, for example, on Temporary Visitor status (tourist), that is completely illegal and you may be deported if found.

When you get the Dependent visa, AND (suppose you have another part-time job with an employer) you apply for the separate permit to engage in paid work and get that permit, at least you are allowed to engage in *that* paid work. With private students, there is no employer involved, and you cannot set how many hours per week, so you cannot really apply for permit for private tutoring job. I cannot say anything further.

By the way, private students are likely to want to converse completely in English - their intention tends to be wanting opportunities to practice their English. So I don't know how much tutoring English will help with your Japanese skills. Unless, of course, you do some language exchange, half the time set aside for conversing completely in Japanese for you to learn, and the other half in English :)

Thanks for that.

I wouldn't be using it as a opportunity to learn better Japanese - I would already want basic conversational skills at least prior to going.