Jobs for foreigners in Japan

Hello,

I am a Canadian university student, and I'm in my third year. Up to this point, I have been studying Education to become a teacher. I've had some practicums, and I have decided that teaching isn't for me. I'm in the process of changing my major, but I don't know exactly what to change it to.

For a long time, my dream has been to become an English language teacher in Japan (because I would really like to live in Japan). Being a teacher just seemed like the most obvious path to get me there.

My question is, besides teaching, what are some other careers that would allow a North American to live and work in Japan?

Thanks in advance for your responses!

I'm an high school exchange student in Japan and as such don't have too much experience with job searching in Japan, but based on what I know about Japanese culture it will probably be in your best interest to become fluent in Japanese (Including the ability to write kanji... better if you can hand-write AND type decently, but typing only will probably be OK). If not, fluency may be mandatory... it really depends on your interests though.

In my case, I am planning to do something in the IT field and/or Electronic Engineering as an adult so... for that kind of job it is mandatory to be able to communicate with people properly so... probably a necessity.

However, if you're looking to do something like be a tour guide for English-Speaking tourists... you may be able to "Pass" with basic Japanese.

It really can depend on what you want to do... with some limitations though as you need to give Japanese companies a reason to hire you over a Japanese person, and trust me the cultural differences are so great that it doesn't surprise me they prefer one of their own kind.

So one thing you might want to think about is what you are changing your major to. If you can't decide, think of what your hobbies are and see if you can find some kind of job/major that is similar. Overall, it isn't going to be the easiest thing in the world and as such a lot of careful consideration and planning is to be advised.

A common path I have seen among my older gaijin friends is they get an English-Teaching job just to get the 3 year working visa and when they are here, they either get married or find a new job after their first contract is up for renewal. Pretty much the first year is likely to be the toughest as a lot of preparation is to be done, truly if you can come on a foreign exchange experience and get a bank account setup here ahead of time and so much other stuff setup then well it makes it all the easier.

So yeah, that's my two cents... Although bear in mind I've only been here for 2 and a half months as a High School student so I may be missing a considerable amount of crucial information.

Basically, unless you can speak fluent Japanese the only thing you can do is "teach English." I put it in commas because it isn't really teaching. If you're doing a degree in Canada to be a proper teacher, you will be sorely disappointed with teaching in Japan in a language school or even in a public school as an ALT. Basically, it's not teaching, it's just reading from a text book and occasionally playing games.

If you want to actually teach English as a proper teacher in Japan, you will need to be fluent in Japanese and then do the Japanese teacher exams. This could take anything from 7 years and above depending on your ability to learn Japanese.

The only other possible option is to work for a company in your home country that has ties to Japan, as this may give you a chance to do a secondment in Japan for a while.

Thank you very much for your responses. It seems that becoming fluent in Japan is a smart thing to do if I want to find another career aside from teaching English.

You can also be a tour guide for North American tourists. (of course you'll need some level of fluency in Japanese but you can get away with a lot less then what you'd need to hold a normal office job)

If you're fluent in Japanese, you can basically get any job.

its not true about you need to be fluent in japanese to get an office job.
I came to japan 6 years ago with only 2 weeks language training and I am still here today (diff company)and yet I still wouldn't say I am fluent.

Also a few japanese companies have decided to use english as their day to day business operating language in a effort to globalise.
rakuten being a famous example...
http://www.japantoday.com/category/technology/view/rakuten-to-make-eng...