Is Altia Central as good as it seems?

11 comments

1. It’s one of the best, if not the best dispatch companies.

2. Good company. It’s only real issues are the same as all other dispatch companies. Low pay and barely any future. But they give you pretty much what is advertised. A long vacation, normal hours, pretty good support.

3. Hope you like being micro managed and at times treated like a child. The materials and training they offer are worse than Interac.

   Also ALTIA will throw you to the wolves to keep their contracts.

   While you might be paid a bit more, you will be working extremely hard for that money.

   I found ALTIA to be no better than Interac.

4. I was with Altia and they had me on a prorated summer contract. It depends on the city. They’re not all paid.

5. Compared to Interac, the office type stuff (submitting expenses, requesting days off, etc) is more annoying and overbearing in my opinion. Like, I have to call my supervisor and have a conversation about a day off request? Get over yourselves and just accept an email. But, I’ll deal with that any day over not getting paid for spring vacation (“between contracts” as they say).

   So in general, yeah Altia pays better. But not all contracts are created equal too, so be careful. Normal contracts will vary between ¥230,000-250,000 per month.

6. It all comes down to pay, imo. Anything ¥250,000 per month or more is fine for ALT work. Anything less, don’t bother. Yeah yeah, “muh benefits, muh coworkers, muh working conditions…” all a bunch of BS next to the salary number.

7. I really enjoyed working with them.

8. I’ve brought up altia from my experience as an applicant in a previous thread about a month ago.

   Wont retype everything, but what I’ve said was:

   I’m unsure why after giving me an acceptance and mailing me an official coe, they decided to NOT reply to me. Emailed the two recruiters there. “Accepted” on feb 2020, lil while before corona. Emailed the two on Nov and December 2020.Till this day, I’m so confused why my emails were ignored.

   It’s a bit of a spit in the face to me, honestly. Ofc, the pay is WAY better than interac, which I’m in atm, but I would’ve like to at least receive SOME sort of reply(even a rejection is fine due to xyz…) as a “successful” applicant from 2020.

   Edit – Your mileage may vary and this is not to discourage you to apply. I’d still take them any day than interac, but have heard the recruiters can become vague or unresponsive.

9. I worked for them for a year 20-21 school year. I will say they really do care about you and try to support you. I had a monster JTE and my supervisor let me call him anytime to find resolutions, vent, whatever. He even made unexpected visits to surprise her and put her on her toes and stuff.

   They hooked me up with a car, helped me understand paperwork, etc.

   The only negative is that training was almost non existent for how to actually be a teacher but training was good on how to interact with children outside of the class.

   I would recommend and I kind of wish I didn’t leave them after only one year.

10. I can only give my personal experience so it may not line up with yours when you start but here it is.

    I like Altia, a lot. Primarily because the support you receive from supervisors and the office staff is incredible. I also just love being an ALT and they do training to help get you off the ground and they provide really solid starter resources.

    However, like people below have said, they’re still a dispatch company and at the mercy of BOE contracts from city to city.

    I don’t know id you already live in Japan or are moving here so here are some things to watch:

    You need Money at the start. If you go with an Altia apartment they take all your moving fees and rent out of your first paycheck. Also, your paycheck is paid the 20th of THE NEXT month. So you’ll start in April but won’t be paid till May 20th.

    Also, most contracts are National Health Insurance which can be hella. You’re required to pay into retirement by the Japanese Government which isn’t cheap either.

    If you work only for Altia, they’ll do your taxes. If you get a second job you have to do your own.

    After your first year of working for them, your next year they’ll take residence taxes out of your paycheck.

    The pay they tell you is your gross, obviously, so your take home pay will be lower – on top of this, any travel reimbursement is also the next month – so you’ll have to pay for april and may travel out of pocket before you get reimbursed on May 20th for April, etc.

    Once you get in the swing of things, its not that bad but its Expensive up front.

11. Hey OP, quick question, how long did it take to hear from them again when they gave you the job?