Heard back from the JET Desk today to hear that I was not being considered for an interview. I wish I knew why. I am a qualified teacher, have a certificate III in Japanese, and have experience in teaching English to Japanese students. Not to mention I’m of course qualified in all the other ways the programme requires.
Maybe the reference letter wasn’t glowing enough? Maybe I missed an important document in the application somewhere? I’ve no idea. This is something I’ve wanted and worked toward for a very very long time. Does anyone have any advice? I’m not even sure what my next move is right now…
25 comments
JET doesn’t want experienced teachers
You may be overqualified.
If you absolutely must be an ALT like Jet, you could try Interac et al. The experience won’t be as good but if you are only looking to do it as a temporary thing in Japan, its alright…..I guess.
There is an article somewhere that carefully shows that JET does not want experienced teachers or really even people who can speak excellent Japanese (most of the time). Essentially, anything that would make the ALT more likely to enter any sort of power struggle with the JTE.
JET wants tourists. It’s why they bar anyone who has already been in Japan for awhile from applying. This is not to be confused with the generic 5-year rule companies have — if you’ve been in Japan *at all* for several years, they don’t want you.
**JET’s goal is not teaching. It’s cultural exchange.**
You need to be honest with yourself and determine what didn’t stand out. It may have been a mismatch in what the panel was looking for, but it may have been something in the interview process you did poorly.
Does anything stand out to you? None of us were there.
Whatever it is, decide if you want Japan for JET or are willing to come over here no matter what. If it’s JET, work on next year.
If it’s “no matter what”, work on showing that you have a pulse. Get a piece of paper and breathe on it during the interview.
JET is not about getting experienced teachers into the country, it’s about attracting (metaphorically) wide-eyed young westerners, showing them a good time, and building soft power. Meanwhile Japan receives some amount of cultural exchange to make younger generations more amenable to people from overseas. It’s not a job program, and the fact that it has a three-year soft limit and five-year hard limit shows that they really don’t care much for teaching experience. No school system in their right mind would turf out a teacher after five years, which is when a teacher is really starting to get in their groove. Truth is, you aren’t there to play the role of the teacher.
You were rejected not because of any flaws, but because you’re not the target.
You’re definitely over qualified. Teaching on Jet would be like pulling the reins back on you real tightly for the whole year. Try other ALT companies and play newb. You might have better chances.
Tbh, I would skip being an alt and apply to international schools here. You’re more likely to get an actual salary you can live off, though that isn’t guaranteed these days either, haha.
For real though, living in Japan is really fun and I hope you can find a path in! I would check out gaijinpot if you haven’t!
It may not be the answer you’re looking for, but I would give up on teaching English entirely in Japan. It’s a crap environment to teach in. Look for better careers. Start up’s are popping up all the time in Japan and many are great for foreigners.
There are many posts saying JET doesn’t want experienced teachers. This isn’t true. I know lots of experienced teachers on JET.
I’m an experienced teacher and I got in. I also emphasised that I had previously worked as a teaching assistant and so knew when to stand back and let the teacher have their domain and talked about working with lots of different teachers with different personalities before, and that being a teaching assistant on JET is more about relationship building, flexibility/adaptability and humour.
I didn’t know any Japanese at all and didn’t claim to know an awful lot about Japan. I said I wanted to experience Japan for myself rather than read about it.
I’m saying this as we don’t know what you put in your application but maybe if you do want to apply again, next time around you should emphasise why your other experiences and personality help you with *this job* and as an *assistant* rather than how experienced you are as a teacher already.
It’s also not all about knowing lots of Japanese already. At all. If it were even a requirement they would state it. Many people don’t have any and that is fine. The people I know who claim to have great Japanese (often from one certain country for some reason) have horrible pronunciation and can’t read well but seem to be very judgy of those without.
I think they want someone open, not someone who claims they know a lot already. It’s about humbling yourself a bit. (Not you specifically, but I think as an assistant it is about being receptive and knowing when to step in and when to step back).
Ofc this may not apply to you at all but maybe review your personal statement and see. That’ll be the main bit I think.
I got rejected as well. Refusing to take “no” for an answer to realize my dream, I spent the next 9 months saving every dollar I could. I came to Japan on a 90-day visa and found a job in about 3 weeks.
If you really want it, you’ll find a way.
If you got rejected pre-interview with those stats, you made a critical error in your application, and didn’t follow an instruction perfectly. That’s generally the only way for an application to get tossed at that point.
After my JET year, I talked to JET alumni on the hiring committee in my city. They told me that when I was accepted, about 75% of the applicants made it in. There weren’t that many applicants to choose from.
In my year, a half dozen of us were ESL teachers, including me, with years of teaching experience and a range of fluency in Japanese.
To some extent, it’s a lottery that depends on the attitudes of the hiring committee.
That’s really upsetting. I swear it’s just luck of the draw sometimes… you could definitely apply direct to schools in Japan. There are other ways to make living there a reality! May I ask what consulate/ embassy you applied to?
Sometimes it seems like luck plays a big part in whether or not you get accepted by JET.
Go for international schools. Especially if you are licensed already. I wish I would have done that instead of jet.
Very simple. Are you white enough ?
Why don’t you just apply to international schools?
Don’t know if this is relevant to your situation, but…
As I recall, the medical information part of the application is quite extensive. Unfortunately, many of the things I remember them asking about are de facto grounds for disqualification. There’s been a long history of very unfortunate situations
Teaching qualifications, experience living in Japan, and Japanese language ability mean nothing when applying to JET.
There are way more perfectly qualified applicants than positions.
Sometimes to make it fair, they’ll lottery between two candidates rather than pick someone specific.
Do not assume a rejection from JET has anything to do with you personally.
You may not have done anything wrong at all. In the US, some regions, like NY and Boston, are really busy have have a lot of applications. Only so many can make it. Knowing this in advanced, I applied through a less busy consulate and was pretty confident that almost every applicant made it in.
On the flip side, if anything was wrong with your application, I’m willing to bet it was your SoP. The statement of purpose sinks a lot of people.
The SoP is the job interview of, “Tell me about yourself.” Most people always say the wrong things when asked this question. That question and the SoP isn’t looking for your life story. They want to know how you are going to be a good fit in Japan and how you will be able to contribute to society at large while in Japan. Briefly talking about your credentials is great, but if you are resting on your laurels and think that’s good enough to get in because you’re an experienced teacher, then you’re wrong. They want to know about a time when you faced adversity, and how you dealt with, and hopefully how you grew from it (i.e. what did you learn in the process). Again, this should all be concise since they’ll question you about it in the actual interview where you can expand on what you wrote in the SoP.
>I’m not even sure what my next move is right now…
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This is good life advice to always have a Plan B and Plan C. JET was always going to be competitive.
Don’t feel bad, it’s not you honestly. I was in a similar situation and got on the waiting list twice, rejected the third time and I had experience, Japanese language skills, etc.
I was desperate to come so I took the first job offered to me with a crappy company lmao. Up to you if you want to do that, but if I were you I’d shop around.
Thanks so much for the sheer number of responses guys. It’s put a lot of new thoughts in my head that are much more positive and tolerable than what I was thinking before. Some more info based on the questions I’ve been seeing:
-I was rejected pre-interview, which has made me a little more downcast
-I do have other plans and opportunities to pursue, so I’m not hopeless
-International schools are tempting however they all require at least a few years of teaching experience in your home country so it’ll be a while before I am ready for that as I am a fresh graduate
-I was applying from Western Australia and I have heard almost no one even mention JET from here, in fact the seminar I took at my university had only 6 people attend and none of them were graduates yet except one. This lead me to believe that the competition wouldn’t be fierce and I’d have it in the bag. I didn’t even consider the possibility of being overqualified
Current JET here. I heard a common mistake some applicants make is that they will focus exclusively on the teaching aspects of JET and forget to add how they intend to contribute at the cultural level in their SOP. How did you structure your SOP?