I’m currently a student in a Japanese language school. I have 3 part time jobs to try to stay afloat and yet I cannot reach my maximun of 28h per week.
I can afford to stay in school until March 2023 but after that I really would like to stay in Japan somehow.
Every part time job I stumble upon on the internet is either restaurants, cafés or eikaiwa for native speakers. Jokes on you, I have a degree in English and know the grammar very well, but they always look at my nationality rather than my skills. Nevertheless, my current jobs all involve teaching English but the serious ones won’t even look at my CV.
Every full time job requires that you start immediately but, since I’m restricted by my 28h student visa, I can’t even apply to those.
My school tries to be reassuring and saying “no worries, most companies hire in April” but I’m not a Japanese citizen and I would have little to 2 weeks to change my visa before the government kicks me out of the country (although currently my visa is valid until August 2023). They also know very well that the process to change your visa takes 1~2 months at least.
My country doesn’t have a partnership for working holiday visas and coming here as a tourist again and looking for a job would be illegal, so both options are impossible.
I have a degree in English and Spanish, I’m an Italian native and I also studied German for 8 years and remember enough to understand it. I have experience in working in other places both in Italy and Japan now, so I’m also adaptable to work anywhere. I’m currently studying Japanese on an N3 Level and, if everything goes well, I will be an N2 by the end of March.
The school says they will support students to find a job, but none of their options are 仕事 but just アルバイト.
I’m tempted to call my embassy and ask for advice there but I don’t wanna bother them with some desperate random gaijin story.
What am I supposed to do?
14 comments
Others might know better than I do, but I think there is a “Designated Activities” visa that you can switch to when your Student Visa is close to expiring. This is a special visa that allows you to job-hunt while remaining in Japan.
Here’s the official link: https://www.isa.go.jp/en/applications/procedures/zairyu_henko10_21_10.html
Maybe ask your school about this? They might be able to help you with the application.
Jobs don’t offer visas.
There’s the classic eikawa route, but once you fall into there might be hard to go out.
Another route is to go for tokutei ginou, you need to pass certain exam for it (which is easy). The work is basically the same as your part time, just different visa status. This one is quite nice because you can still work while taking your time for few years to look for a proper job.
You can consult with restaurant / hotel manager (or wherever you do part time) for this.
Tokutei katsudou visa allows you to stay in japan for extra 3 months? or so iirc, but you are not allowed to work afaik.
But you still have quite time, the work you can take usually heavily depends on your degree too. It’s also possible to take interview while still attending school.
In my case I studied for 4 months, then leave for a work after passing interview.
What are your skills other than languages?
It is necessary for the company to choose you, not the many Japanese here.
Why don’t you do something in translation since you know many languages
Don’t underestimate the power of networking. Having someone to introduce you so you can get your foot in the door at a company can really go a long, long way. Talking to someone in person might make a huge difference when it comes to your not-a-native-speaker problem.
Don’t attend language school. I’ve met many foreign students who attended game development schools like HAL or ECC, they almost always get employments after graduating.
Well, what skills do you have apart from being multilingual?
Japan’s language education is pretty much limited to English, with some schools teaching basic Korean or Chinese. At university level you can study more or less any language you like.
Schools aren’t interested in hiring teachers that aren’t native speakers of the target language. That’s a conscious decision and probably isn’t going to change. You seem to have already discovered this.
Given that Italian is only going to be taught at university level, the next question would be are you a university-level qualified Italian teacher? Given you don’t speak Japanese well enough to hold a class as a full-blown teacher, this probably isn’t going to be an option for you.
Knowing Spanish and German is irrelevant. You’re not a native speaker of either so you can’t teach them at university level and there’s no demand for entry-level tuition in either of those languages in this country.
So going back to my original question, what skills do you have apart from being multilingual? If your entire skill set is just speaking languages that are not in-demand, then unfortunately you aren’t going to find a full-time job in Japan that’s not in a restaurant or something. You need to have a skill on which you can be hired that’s actually in demand, like engineering or IT, in addition to your language skills (which are at best an added bonus).
I have an Italian friend who managed to get a job in international customer support for a mobile game developer in Tokyo – she would answer the phone all day and speak to people in English and Italian. You might have some luck in this sort of place, but honestly it’s not really a career you want to be getting into. Long hours, toxic environment, low pay, expendable.
On the bright side your visa is valid until next August. You cannot be made to leave the country, even by your school, until this time (though you can be evicted from your accommodation if it’s owned by the school).
Additionally, if you have a job offer from a company and are processing your visa through them, there is a sort of “grace-period” to your residence status. Even if you stay past the date on your visa, you cannot be deported if a new visa is being processed.
I know someone whose company hired him in April, but didn’t process his visa until after he started working – he was given a grace period while the new visa was processed (around 2 months) during which time his new company were allowed to make him work, but only under the terms of his previous (student) visa (up to 28 hours).
I would suggest you keep looking for jobs, given that you’re already here, but I wouldn’t expect to find anything resembling a career if you don’t have any saleable skills. You might be able to extend your time in Japan with part-time or full-time customer-service jobs, but you’re going to need to know Japanese far better than N3 level, have another skill or both if you want to actually settle here and have a career.
I think you’d have a good chance with Gaba (my experience with them was very good, btw).
Look for non-teaching jobs.
Learn to code, maybe.
Do you have work experience in some relevant field? If not, you will be in the 新卒 category- and hiring is always done for April. However, you’re very late to the game. Try looking at MyNavi etc. And just shoot applications to various companies and hope for interviews.
Have you looked into Japanese job hunting? Do you have the interview process down? 履歴書?
Probably not the answer that you are looking for, but since you mentioned that you are Italian… te la butto lì.
In the past ICCJ (Italian chamber of commerce in Japan) was quite open for internships.
If they are still looking for someone, as a backup plan you may start with an internship there and then look for a job while doing the internship. (Many chances for networking with Italian companies that do business in Japan during sponsored events. You may then be able to find a job in Italy with the clause to be sent to Japan)
I’ve been in your shoes and I know how you feel.
I was applying since October for 6 months before my graduation. Got a couple of offers in April and started working in June.
As a non native English speaker myself, and my education wasn’t in English I don’t qualify for visa of English teacher. Even though the position was for English teacher they offered to sponsor visa for French teacher, my second language.
My advice is, keep applying to all kind of job that you might fit. If you get an offer to start immediately and you like it, take it. Talk to your school about your situation to get an early graduation. You can! If you can’t talk to them to change schedule, or reduce hours, or anything that allows you to work and finish school. Anyways, the paper work will take from 1 to 3 months before you get your work visa and start working.
By the way many would drop the language school in the blink of an eye if it means they get a fill time job with sponsorship.
All that been said. I’m also a recruiter now. Send me a message if you need help or advice.
The processing of exchanging your Student’s visa to 「技術・人文知識・国際業務」visa requires you get a promise from your forward employee known as 内定通知書 or 内々定通知書 once you get that then can easily obtain a 5 year working visa. And your next step should be learning more about PR visa via 高度人材 system