I heard that it is impossible to get a job in Japan if you are not Japanese (I believe especially Westerners), with the exception of English teaching in language schools and being an English teaching aide in a high school.
I'm guessing this is because of the whole gaijin stigma. Possibly also because of the whole sakoku history, and that the Japanese possibly consider their nationality synonymously with race.
Post your experiences of employment in Japan here please.
From everything I know, I have to disagree! I know some people who work or are going to work (already having a 内定) in Japan. I know for example an Indonesian guy, who will start to work for Sony next spring. He's got his (engineer) master degree at a Japnaese univ., though. His Japanese proficiency is approx. 2級-level. I think as long as they want your labour, there's some way to work in Japan. It may be hard to get a job without sufficient japanese proficiency and without a university degree. One think that really prevents foreigners from working in Japan is possibly that you have go through the whole 就職活動 thing which usually takes some time...
[quote author=マイケル link=topic=286.msg1148#msg1148 date=1230264745] The amount of time the Japanese college students I know put into looking for a job is ridiculous, and that's when the economy is doing just fine =/. [/quote] haha, that's true. What I find even more ridiculous is that you have to wait for a whole year if you miss a deadline...
[quote author=定禅寺通り link=topic=286.msg1146#msg1146 date=1230264327] From everything I know, I have to disagree! I know some people who work or are going to work (already having a 内定) in Japan. I know for example an Indonesian guy, who will start to work for Sony next spring. He's got his (engineer) master degree at a Japnaese univ., though. His Japanese proficiency is approx. 2級-level. I think as long as they want your labour, there's some way to work in Japan. It may be hard to get a job without sufficient japanese proficiency and without a university degree. One think that really prevents foreigners from working in Japan is possibly that you have go through the whole 就職活動 thing which usually takes some time... [/quote]
For me, I'm talking from the perspective of a Caucasian Australian - also not having gone to a Japanese University.
I'm not too sure how they would deal with people like me, not being Asian.
就職活動 seems to be a new topic for me - so you're expected to search for a job for many months? I guess it makes sense in the job culture of Japan - i.e. you stay with a company usually for life.
EDIT: Actually lack of advertised jobs seems to be strange, I thought you might have to choose a job from many - but (I'm guessing) there are little openings and you must scrounge to find one?
I think whether you could find a job depends on your job qualification rather than your nationality/ethnic backround. 就職活動 means that they have a very standardized application procedures including written tests (like in school) and interviews. There are different rounds, so only if you succeed in the first round you can go on to the second and so on. Between those rounds there's usually a gap of several weeks which makes the procedure lengthy. I must admit however, that I myself haven't gone through this yet. Everything I know is what I've heard from others who I've met at my Japanese university. I'm sorry I can't help you on where to find job openings - however I guess that they are there, but maybe they just don't put them on the web. But I'll ask a friend and will tell you if he has an idea...
I think the main question is what skills you can bring, and whether they are valuable enough to make up for you being illiterate (which is what you are if you do not have the Japanese skills of a normal adult, including reading and writing). There aren't many decent jobs like that ;)
Just consider the situation in your own country. Can you think of many jobs someone who couldn't speak, read, and write English could do?
Yeah, but how many of those people are making good money with career prospects?
There are plenty of crappy manual labour jobs that anyone could do here in Japan, but we are talking subsistence level income, the kind where you have to do two jobs just to pay the rent and eat...
As I was saying - you'd be surprised around here. The computer company I interned at (and they were paying interns better than a lot of full-time jobs; I know that there are programmers there making upwards of 140k a year) had quite a few. The guy in the cube next to me was really nice, but didn't speak very much English - he was Russian. [size=6pt]It was actually kind of nice, because it's much more soothing and less distracting to hear Russian from the next cube over than some annoying English conversation. And his name was Vlad! ^o^[/size] And there were at least three Chinese and one Hebrew speaker who didn't speak very good English, either - I was really glad that I had so much ESL experience, since it meant I was able to communicate with most of them well enough to get what I needed, or could hunt up someone who could.
Silicon Valley's a little unique that way. ^^ And it's not always super tech companies, either.
These are guys with specific skills, right? Computer programmers?
In Japan you can make a great living if you have professional or practical qualifications -computers, law, engineering, project management... even more so if you have some Japanese.
However, without specific skills or language skills there is not much for you (unsurprisingly) ;D
My native language is portuguese. I'm also semi-fluent in english and spanish. Next year (ok, starting in late September) I'll be *hopefully* going to college, my course's name is east asian studies, I'll be learning mandarin as major and japanese as minor.
There's a lotta brazilians and chinese in Japan, would it be possible to get a job in there?
the thing with getting a job in Japan, besides the 'normal' English teacher-type jobs, is that as a foreigner you would need to be *more* qualified for the job than competing Japanese workers. Part of it is the Japanese level; companies don't want to spend time translating (or worse, having to then spend more money to hire an interpreter!) for someone whose Japanese level isn't up to par - and that means business Japanese, or the technical jargon for whatever field you're using. The other side of it is that like in many other countries (I know I've heard that in Germany non-citizens are not allowed to get full-time jobs, don't know how much of an exaggeration that might be), the Japanese are going to give first pick to someone of their own nationality - whether that's through racism, national pride, or just the fact that there are more complications to hiring a foreigner than a native (visa status, proof of health care, possibly the cost of moving them into Japan, etc). On that note however, I do know several foreigners who are working/have worked in normal Japanese companies; including a Chinese national (who got Japanese citizenship) who worked for Yamato (Kuroneko) Delivery Service offices, and American nationals (no Japanese citizenship) who work as an engineer in Tokyo and a graphics designer/animator in Sendai. Jobs are out there, but a foreigner needs to be more-than-fully qualified - I've heard a number of people with their plans one coming to Japan to get a job with no more qualifications than they speak Japanese - well here that's not marketable, so make sure you have a skill (besides language unless that's the route you want to go, and then have fun competing with all the other foreigners!) that is actually marketable in Japan. *gets off the soapbox*
My advice is to find a way to come to Japan. Preferably as a student, so you can focus on language acquisition. That said, you can study Japanese intensively outside of Japan too. Chat with Japanese friends/acquaintances, take Japanese classes, read simple Japanese books/comics, watch dramas/anime, etc..
While you are upping your Japanese, keeping in mind what [b]mysticfive[/b] said, work skills/talent/ability/potential are [b]critical[/b]. You need to be valued in the eyes of your future employer to have a good shot at getting the job you're interested in. This can be demonstrated in different ways: a degree/portfolio/interview/project or a combination thereof.
Actually, what I've heard is it's hard for a JAPANESE person to get a job in Japan nowadays! Much of the younger generations are moving out to other nearby countries to get hired. (I guess the job market is just more open in general elsewhere)
A girl in my class (senior in college) already has a job set up for her in Japan doing some kind of environmental/sustainability work in Tokyo. I know it's just [b]one[/b] case, but it is proof that it isn't IMPOSSIBLE to get a job other than English teacher in Japan if you're a gaijin ^_^!
Lucky for me I'm actually interested in the whole English teaching bit >_<;
I never had trouble finding jobs in Japan. It would depend on your personality, academic background, and work experience just as it would in your own country.
And yes, if you are applying for an entry level job you're probably slightly worse off than your japanese graduate friends; why would they want to hire someone who's likely to leave the country ina few years when the Japanese applicants are somewhat likely to stay with the company if not until retirement then at least for a longer time than the average foreigner.
At the same time though, if the job isn't Japanese editor or a job that requires perfect Japanese, you being a foreigner might even be in your favor as with all the fly-jin gone there's even more companies out there looking for English speakers.
Even now I'm still getting emails from recruiters in Japan asking me to come in for an interview.
If you can adapt to working in a Japanese company and speak decent Japanese, there shouldn't be any obstacles for you working in Japan.
I got offered a job when I was still on a tourist visa on my second day in Japan, in general though they want you to have a work visa before they will even interview you but that's a different headache :-[ :-\
Very interesting topic! So, to be blunt, being Asian means something? I guess my only edge would be my proficiency in English. I hope I can be like that Indonesian guy mentioned in the previous posts (I'm an engineering graduate)! How about graduate studies in Japan?
