Hello! I have a PhD in Chemisty from a major US institution with 8 years industry experience. I’ve always been interested in moving to Japan to work/live and considered teaching as an entryway as industry expat pathways are not fruitful.
Does having the advanced degree/experience and English as a native speaker help at all with entry for teaching positions, or should I aim towards a different area? What additional accreditations should I try and work towards before applying? Thanks!
11 comments
Why don’t you find a job related to your experience?
Yeah. You’re prime to teach chemistry at a university. Check into that.
English ‘teaching’ jobs for people who don’t have a background in education or TESOL pay the equivalent of US$30k a year or less (usually $3-5k less).
You could look at university teaching jobs (for Chemistry) but you might need to do a little publishing to be competitive and I assume you haven’t been publishing recently. If you have, ignore that and just look for university jobs.
If you get a teaching credential in chemistry you would be attractive to international schools in Japan. Since you’ll be doing a bit of time in school for this, you might as well tack on a certificate in TESOL.
Go on LinkedIn and apply to relevant jobs.
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Don’t teach English with your qualifications.
A degree in anything other than TESOL, Linguistics, or other teaching-related feild will not qualify you to teach at the university/college level.
You, like everyone else without any ESL qualifications or experience, will be relegated to teaching at an English conversation school or being an ALT.
You will be a contract worker, treated like someone who is uneducated doing a minimum wage job – without the benefits that people normally get when they work full time.
You will have to live where they tell you to live, in the apartment they assign you, and you’ll be making about as much money as full-time worker at McDonald’s.
This is a job designed specifically for a gap-year holiday between university and getting “a real job,”not for educated professionals.
I can’t imagine you would find this work intellectually stimulating, and you may even find that the lack of respect and autonomy to be frustrating and even demoralizing.
Whatever your interest in Japan, it’s probably better served if you come here for a holiday with a short-term sight-seeing visa.
Lol. Story time. I was in Japan Spring ’05 to Summer ’10. Started at NOVA. A guy I was teaching with had a PhD from the UK. He was using NOVA as kind of working holiday. After a year, he got a job as a lecturer at Tsukuba University teaching intro Chem in English. He parlayed that into doing research with a colleague at Tsukuba. He’s now tenured at Tsukuba. He worked on his Japanese, and he’s N2 last I heard. However, he publishes in English and lectures in English.
There are Japanese Universities that want STEM teachers. Did you lecture while getting your PhD? That might be all you need. Apply to Westgate Corp and see what happens.
Also, there are jobs for Pfizer and GSK in Japan on their website. Were those a non-starter? Working for a western company in Japan is the only way to fly IMO.
Good luck!
Unless you have a super peppy outgoing personality (like a salesman) and love doing simple repetitive tasks over and over, you’re probably not going to love teaching English. Not to mention the pay is terrible.
In addition to looking for job opening on various websites, i recommend looking up big name chemical companies in Japan and applying to them or just networking and talking to them.
I knew a guy who said his chemical company hires foreigners somewhat regularly. Some leave for higher pay, some perhaps because the Japanese work environment is harsh.
Japanese companies that work internationally will have many bilingual employees. So communication shouldn’t be too difficult either.
Again, you have a PhD. No need to throw a year or more of your life away on teaching English.
You might take some of these ideas and run them by r/UniTeachinginJapan/ to see what folks there might say.
Your best bet is probably going through personal or business connections and getting a job in industry at your current level. There are various chemical products companies (and other companies that need chemists).
I have a PhD but not in Chemistry. I’d highly recommend not doing eikaiwa or ALT work given your qualifications.
1. as others posted, JREC is your job search board.
2. also check JSPS.
3. For that matter, just google through chemistry, chemical engineering, material science, biochemistry, biophysics, and other faculty in Japan who might work on projects where your specialization would allow for collaboration. Confirm by looking at their publications Then start contacting them (in English).
I don’t know why everyone is telling you to teach chemistry. Contact several major recruiters (Google “management recruiter Japan” or similar) and ask them to place you. You have no business wasting time teaching, be it chem. or English.