So after several delays already, the company told us that the ship-off date would be delayed all the way to March of 2023, which to be honest, isn’t what I had in mind. The reason I wanted to teach was to live over there and become fluent for business. If anyone can think of any better ideas that get me over there sooner, or even a job in America that would still help me towards my goals, I’m all ears. Feeling kind of lost at the moment since I was holding off on moving and getting a job in the US in anticipation of leaving for Japan.
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Interac isn’t the only alt company in Japan.
It’s too late for a spring start, but you might be able to find something for an august start.
Interac also recently lost a bunch of contracts, so that’s another reason for the newest delay.
Altia, Joytalk, Borderlink are three other companies you might want to look into.
If in doublt study Japanese you loose nothing in doing so especially if your goal is to move to business.
Learn a skill in demand while learning Japanese. Working for an English-language teaching outfit, especially one that recruits from overseas, isn’t going to help you become fluent for business.
which company is this?
I see your reason for wanting to teach here was to come over, experience life, and become fluent.
Something to consider, almost no one achieves fluency in one year. Can you reach “okay” conversational? Possibly. That assumes your workplace encourages you to speak Japanese at work, which many don’t because – your job is teaching English. Not just teaching English to your students but also semi-forcing the Japanese English teachers to use English and practice English. Even reaching a mediocre level of conversational ability assumes you study outside of work, you take lesson, you have some Japanese friends. (And its harder to make Japanese friends than you might think. Although a first-year here can make many “English-bandit” acquaintances. Trouble with these are, they feign friendship for free English practice. They don’t want to speak Japanese with you.)
Worst case situation, and this is often the case for the first 1-3 years of an ALT: you go to work, you are vaguely ignored by coworkers unless its to treat you like an infant or scowl because you put forth a thought. You are asked not to use Japanese on campus. You are frustrated due to either too too much busy work and asked to stay late or because there was a lack of things to do at work. You only know your fellow native English teachers so you go out with them only. The salary is low so it isn’t like you have money for travel or time you feel like going around.
Of course, this isn’t everyone’s experience, but it is a large number.
You might have a better experience if you come as a student at a language school so that is prime focus. You can then find a part-time after you are here and work if you feel like it.
Try to get a job with an Asian trading company, customs broker, freight forwarder. The job is absolutely the worst, pay is crap, but what you learn (for a year or two) will be absolutely invaluable over the span of your business career.
Apply for Borderlink, Heart, or some other ALT company. Hopefully you have money from your business job to help you out. Those ALT companies pay crap wages. While you in Japan (and before), study Japanese. Also, search for direct hire ALT jobs.
The hard part is getting in. You already have the business background. You now need to get to JLPT 1 (and in Japan).
This ia actually a good thing. Those jobs are temporary positions intended for backpackers that just want to check out Japan for a year. They are exploitative companies that barely pay you enough to survive. Very few people that take those jobs are able to move into different work because it is a huge black mark on your resume. If you want to be here long term start your career where you are now and when you have a few years of **valuable** experience look for positions in Japan. You can also go to language school for a few years and then look for a job. The English pretend teaching jobs tend to ban you from using Japanese which holds people back.
If fluency was the only goal why not consider Language school?
You ought to ask in r/movingtojapan since your goal is not teaching in Japan.
If you want to study Japanese why not just go to a language school? As oong as you have money its a much easier way to enter the country, you’ll spend more time doing what you actually came to do, and you’ll have much more time to do other things.
>I was holding off on moving and getting a job in the US
This topic comes up from time and this needs to be said – until you have a visa, you have *nothing*. Nothing at all.
An expected arrival date is nothing.
A job offer is nothing.
Don’t put your life on hold for the *possibility* of moving to Japan. You’re talking about resume gaps but how long have you gone without working because you were expecting to move to Japan?
If you want to become proficient in the language, apply to a language school.
I suggest applying for jobs. We are in a similar boat. I’m thinking about working for a job related to finance and then spending time learning the language and using it as leverage to apply to Japan soon. I think just waiting for Interac is a semi futile mission as we don’t even know if they might screw us over next year. :/ Good luck !