There are a lot of threads from people who are asking advise about how to find jobs or what they might be doing wrong in their pursue to get into a career.
Can we share some stories of how you got into your career/job here in Japan?
I’ve been here since before everything was done online. All of my jobs came from the fact that everyone I met knew what I was doing workwise & I was that go to person if anyone heard of someone looking for my skillset. Even though I know a lot of people through working in entertainment I only promoted myself as designer when I was younger.
I transitioned into Digital marketing because due to designing for the web I had a good client who introduced me to an SEO agency. I had an interview & my knowledge at the time of technical SEO because of designing websites was pretty high. From that agency I kept learning everything I could about digital marketing (SEM, Paid Social, Analytics)
My current job/career was a result of a former coworker knowing my skillset & introducing me into a dream job.
**Takeaways what worked for me**
* Make business cards with the work you want to do
* Network with people connected with that industry
* Get experience any way you can. I know design/marketing/programming might be easier to do yourself but try to be creative.
* Make sure others know you for what you what to be doing
* \*\*Extra Your public online presence should represent you & what you want to do.
Anyone else want to share your story or stories you know to inspire those thinking of how to get jobs here.
18 comments
Thanks for sharing.
I’m doing pretty similar work, but haven’t been able to break out and get clients/work here yet. All my clients are still overseas (working out okay now with the yen/dollar thing), but I hope I can start finding more work here soon.
Shag the bosses daughter.
I started working B2B sales straight out of Uni for a Gaishikei, switched jobs once for a salary increase e then went back and got my MBA
I did an internship with a global company in my home country and asked to do another one at their subsidiary in Japan. Later on, I signed with the company full-time here in Japan 🙂
I worked in the upper tiers of SaaS/IaaS/PaaS customer support in the US. I suddenly needed to move to Japan for family reasons, so I found a US-headquartered company with a global customer base that happened to be hiring for a support engineer in the APAC region. They have an office in Japan, so that made the process much easier.
23 years of experience in the IT service industry (the most recent 10 under a globally recognized brand), letters of recommendation from C-level execs, and a mountain of certifications made it an easy sell.
All my jobs are engineering related. English was allowed for all of them.
Right out of Uni I didn’t have much clue. I went to several career fairs for shinsotsu, though most of them weren’t accepting PhDs. Eventually one Haken place let me in because they were so short of workers it seemed. I took some SPI test in a room of about 50 people, then I think they just selected people based on the University ranking. Salary at the time of quitting was 3.2M per year although they paid half of my 60,000/mo rent and 1 year work experience acquired.
Second job I got in contact with a recruiter. He told me company X was hiring so I googled that company as much as I could. The recruiter said I could create a simple powerpoint that outlined what work I did in the past and what I studied in Uni. I did present this ppt during my interview. When I left, salary was 5.8M per year, no housing allowance and got 3.5 years work experience.
Applying for my third and current job was similar to what I did for company X, minus the recruiter. I found the job posting myself and applied directly. Googled the company, made an interview ppt and all.
My takeaways.
Google up the company, try to figure out or anticipate what the position you’re applying to will do, and cherry pick and stretch (to some reasonable end) your skillset to it.
Went to Japanese uni, did 就活, got job.
Engineering job here.
Came to Japan for 6 months internship in 2017 on my 3rd year of University, after that returned to home country to finish my degree. Worked a shit job back home for a year and asked the company I was an intern for if there would be any open positions and got a job.
One of my mates from back in the UK sorted me out a work from home job in Japan. It is great because it’s a British company I don’t have to put up with the Japanese company bullshit or reading the air.
Network like hell!
I was introduced to the president of the company I work for by the high priest at my temple. He offered me a job.
I applied from abroad on a job posting on LinkedIn (engineering, non IT). I went to Japan for a 6 month internship in 2017, then I went back to my country, skilled up for a few years and started to apply seriously.
I haven’t had to use my network yet but I agree with other posters: keep contact with the people that can vouch for your skills, especially the ones that are either in a position of power, or brilliant and destined to do great things.
I don’t mean to be a downer, but…
TBH, if I hadn’t come into Japan with a good job, I kind of doubt I would ever have had a particularly good career.
I did financial research for about 18 months right after university. I decided to quit for the chance to work abroad and joined NOVA. I did that for about a year but met a few people in the Japan office. After I left NOVA, the plan was to go full-time to a language school and become a proper bilingual, but when I went home for Christmas, HQ made an offer for me to return with a promotion and a 35% raise. A couple of years later, one of the senior guys I had met in Japan offered me a transfer and a 30% raise again.
I believe a lot of the people I see looking for a decent career in Japan are ESL related. I wish I had better news, but frankly, had I come over without experience or only education-related experience, I’d still be making my 3M JPY per year. If you are in an education-related role, that’s where you are probably going to be. You can compete for a uni job or international school I guess. You can go full boar into Japanese and that may work to get you into something better but you’ll have to be quite good, not conversational.
TL;DR: how you enter is paramount.
Subject teacher at an international school. Went through the usual / advised process.
Degree in subject -> work experience in degree -> teaching MA + licence at home -> taught at home -> applied to international school
Take job in start up cos they were hiring like mad and low barrier to entry > do good job there > boss leaves but asks me to join him at the next company.
Went drinking with a rugby club as a 190cm 120kg dude. They wanted me to join, I said I have to work weekends. Main guy was like “I got you. Apply to my company!”
Got a job working in “marketing” for a pocket wifi company. Weirdest and most depressing 4 years of my life.
I sent a tweet.
(not even joking lol)
I joined their open class and after two months I was scouted and asked if I wanted to do it professionally. I trained for a year and a half and now I work full time as a pro wrestler and now run the company’s international services department (the entire department is just me lol).