Hi all,
Over the years I’ve made many visits to various countries throughout Asia and most recently had the pleasure of spending three months sightseeing in Japan, primarily living within central Tokyo. Since then I’ve done a little soul-searching on exactly where I want to take my career and what I need to achieve in order to get there. I’m now essentially just looking at settling down *somewhere* long term, built a short-list of countries that I’ve enjoyed my time in, and for now the most likely candidate for me based on my travels is Japan.
With that said, **I’m really hoping this subreddit can help me with is a “sanity check” on my plans.** Just give it to me straight.
So just for a little bit of context, I’m a 27-year old male currently living in the United Kingdom. I’ve been working as an IT Consultant within a niché area of the Cybersecurity industry for roughly 8 or so years now and currently speak absolutely minimal Japanese outside of a few select phrases which served me well through the three months of near daily Konbini visits. Oh and I also don’t have a bachelors degree. I know what you’re thinking, but stick with me please.
Due to various political and financial reasons, I do not see myself living in the UK for much longer and despite being more financially comfortable than most living here and perhaps therefore not having much of a right to complain as others do in our poor economic climate, I am still not enjoying my life here and want a change of scenery long-term. This isn’t a five-minute decision and has been something I’ve been toying with for a number of years now.
Anyway, I recognize that Japan is notoriously difficult to enter when you’re looking at careers which *aren’t* as an English teacher; this difficulty is also two-fold when you lack the language skills and three-fold in my case because I also don’t have a bachelors degree.
So with that said, I’ve broken things down into the three big hurdles and I’m hoping you guys can give me a reality check here. Am I being sensible? Am I really missing something?
**Hurdle #1 – Lack of Bachelors Degree**
This is the biggest one in my eyes. I’m going to be tackling this hurdle by resigning from my current position and beginning full time studies for a 2-year (accelerated) Computer Science bachelors degree at a fairly good university here in the UK and also hopefully grabbing a part-time Cybersecurity role just so that I can continue to build experience on my resumé.
This is also probably the biggest point of anxiety for me. After working in a professional capacity for so long, it’s going to feel very strange returning to education and almost like a backward step for my career, but unfortunately I did not see much alternative.
Yes, when combining my current education level and professional experience, I do *technically* meet the 10-year experience criteria as an alternative to a degree, but we know this isn’t a hard-rule and is just subject to the whims of immigration at the time. Combine that with many organisations just mandating a Bachelors degree anyway in the job listing anyway and filtering those without…
I’m not going to rush this move, and for the sake of two years of my time this definitely seemed like the most straightforward approach to remove any immigration doubt from my resumé when it lands on the desk of a hiring manager. ***Does that sound reasonable or am I being dumb?***
And just to be clear here, I’m not returning to studies *solely* because of my intention to move to Japan. Realistically I’m going to need a degree *wherever* I decide on moving. Unfortunately for me I quickly learned that most countries require bachelors degrees if you wish to stay for any meaningful amount of time.
**Hurdle #2 – Lack of Japanese**
Whilst I was in Japan, I had some discussions with various recruitment teams there (and also even attended some recruitment-focused events) and I got the impression from hiring managers that whilst Japanese isn’t *mandatory* for some roles, it will rather obviously help. Shocker!
Being realistic, I don’t want to put too much on my plate and I’m not sure how much time I’ll have left between my full-time studies and part-time work. I’m obviously going to continue my Japanese studies here when time permits, but I guess my main hope is that I can try my best to land a primarily English-speaking role and *really* learn Japanese whilst I’m living there. Immersion learning helps and I learned quite a lot in just my three short months visiting.
For those with experience in the Japanese IT industry, how rose-tinted is this thinking? How common are English-speaking roles within the Cybersecurity industry?
**Hurdle #3 – Lack of Job Prospects**
I’m hoping that this one solves itself, mainly when Hurdle #1 is taken care of and I’ve actually got my degree. I’ve been asking myself “What do I offer that a Japanese-speaking native doesn’t?” and I guess that’s where my years of existing professional experience within a niché industry comes in.
I’ve been speaking informally to some APAC recruiters that I already have connections with and out of curiosity they floated my resumé to some Japanese companies earlier this year. I did get a few bites from this *(i.e. Rakuten & Amazon)* but according to them, the lack of bachelors degree scared hiring managers away. They presumably just didn’t want to take the chance with immigration which I can understand, and I’d wager it’s the same for many employers which is why I didn’t get many bites floating my resumé on my own.
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So there we have it… sorry for the massive wall of text. I’ve had months to research this, but as things start to fall into place (such as starting University in January) the anxiety is obviously building as I take such a massive leap of faith in my professional career.
Even if you didn’t read everything, any advice would be hugely appreciated.
by ChickenBubbly8130