A question for those of you who’ve found jobs in Japan.
I know that 99% of Japanese job posts list N2 or N1 Japanese as requirements but…do employers really check for it if you can speak/read Japanese?
I’ve been living in Japan for 5 years now. I have N2+ ability. I just don’t want to cough up the $70 and time when I could just say “Yup, I have N2 level Japanese” so the employer can check it off his checklist and we can move on the qualifications that actually matter.
Do Japanese employers ever actually check for certification, or do they not care as long as you can interview well enough?
24 comments
In my experience, the N2 is just a general guideline. I never had someone ask for my certificate and they don’t seem to care so long as you can articulate yourself well enough during the interview. These were all science and engineering jobs which generally have more relaxed language requirements. For other types of jobs, it may be a strict requirement.
Strictly speaking, no.
Unlike jobs where you’re legally required to be certified for the job(like motorcycle mechanic, maybe?), jobs that ask for an N2 certification don’t legally require N2. They’re often just company policies.
That being said, if it’s company policy, it could possibly be written into their rules that foreign employees need N2 to be hired. Then it’ll come down to how strictly they follow their rules and how willing they’re willing to bend those rules.
Thankfully, this is Japan and the test is only 7000 yen and not $70.
Jokes aside, you would need to demonstrate somehow that you can speak at the N2 level. That is very hard to do on a resume without the actual certification. 9 times out of 10, that’s something they look for on the application. You won’t even get to the interview if it’s a requirement.
Cough up time? 1 Sunday afternoon? 7000 yen investment for a potentially much higher paying job?
If you’re so confident in your ability, this would be a no brained don’t you think?
Or, ask yourself, do you want to be caught with your pants down if a company does ask for it after you said you had it, and you can’t show it?
Anecdotal but I am in a very traditional industry and I had a recruiter tell me on the phone to “do my self a favor and just go and get N1 because many companies in this industry have it as a hard requirement.” This was after talking on the phone for an hour and the reason he said it was my ability was more than enough, but some companies required it and would ask for proof. Take that as you will, it varies per industry and type of job.
Another factor I haven’t seen mentioned yet is the location and the company you apply for. My boss has never heard of the JLPT and I’m the first foreigner at my company, so my ability was assessed during the interview. I imagine if you’re in an urban area, with lots of candidates, you’d probably need it.
Better to be prepared and hand them a certificate when asked than brag about your N2+ ability, then fail the actual test and don’t have a certificate to show for.
If you really are at N2+, why not just pay the ¥7k? It’s a few hours and costs less than a night of drinking to secure a certificate that avoids any doubt in your ability, which you’ll get to prove when you meet them anyway. If you’re caught in a lie you’ll just put yourself in a crappy position.
If there s a requirement for N something or if you put it on your resume, you’d better not lie or at least be good at Photoshop (I’ve been asked for a certificate by a company just after being hired, no particular requirements they just wanted all diplomas on the resume, because Japan?).
In any other case you absolutely don’t need jlpt.
To actually work you would need jlpt N0 or better anyway and unfortunately they don’t do those.
Answering as someone who has N3 certificate and just barely made it out of job hunting. They do ask what level your Japanese is, and if it’s lower than N2 they’ll let you know (at least all of my interviewers do) that it might be something they’re worried about.
They don’t ask you to whip out your JLPT certification per se (some might ask you to tho), they just trust you to tell the truth and they’ll also probably know through the interview if Japanese is high enough or not 🤷♀️
If you’re applying with a western based ‘bilingual’ recruitment service then yes, you need N2.
If you’re applying through a Japanese agent, no need because they’ll know if you’re good enough in the screening chat.
Yes, for jobs that require it. Plenty of jobs out there like management and customer facing where they want proof of your language abilities.
No, for jobs that don’t. I work in IT, my company didn’t care at all and just took my word for it and we had an interview session in Japanese.
If you’re already past the level, then taking the test won’t be hard and it’s a nice to have when it’s needed.
My experience with Japanese employers is they have no idea what JLPT is. You could have 1 or 5, depends on interview performance.
If they require an actual certification, like specifically state N2/N1, then there’s no way around it. There are job postings that don’t have any certifications listed on them and you can just apply in Japanese.
I suppose it depends on industry, but I haven’t encountered 90% of jobs requiring N2 or any N at all despite requiring Japanese.
In practice even if they have a JLPT requirement, it’s usually ignored if you are speaking and writing Japanese without significant issues.
>99% of Japanese job posts list N2 or N1 Japanese as requirements
Probably the opposite. 99% of Japanese hiring managers have no idea what the JLPT.
Only a very tiny minority of foreigner-oriented job postings will even mention JLPT. And even among those, if the interviewer is Japanese, they’ll know within 20 seconds of talking to you whether your Japanese is good enough.
I’ve never taken the JLPT and have been working in 100% Japanese environments for over a decade. Never had an issue getting interviews and offers.
Another day, another post where the OP is just looking for validation and not real answers lol.
if JLPT = n1 or JLPT = n2:
result = pass
else:
result = fail
Most (probably 90% of) companies are just like this and unless you want to be excluded because of your precious pride I recommend you just take the afternoon off and take the test.
Based on your self assessment you should probably pass it easily wouldn’t you?
I’ve never had someone ask to see the real certificate as proof, but of course they are going to be checking your communication skills during the interview, so regardless if you have the certificate or not you’re going to need excellent speaking and listening skills.
Even with N1 and strong speaking skills, I found interviewers were still hesitant to hire a foreigner, so you also need to be able to convince them that you’re capable of doing the job in Japanese, even with JLPT certification to back it up
I will also add, there is such a huge gap between N2 and N1, and then from N1 on. The differences in ability between people in those ranges is also quite noticeable. So being N2+ sort of makes it hard to tell how much Japanese you actually do know and can use
Hello, native (EN) speakers, welcome to the world of non-native speakers. * wink * * wink *
Seriously though, this thing have been plaguing non-native English speakers for DECADES. IELTS/TOEFL certificate suddenly out of its validity. Suddenly, some ppl are out of specs and can’t speak English? No. But still, we need to cough up 150+ USD to do the tests again.
Same deal for JLPT. It’s your non-native tongue. Companies and other institutions require some kind of short-hand to quickly judge your language ability. Certification is one of the established way. It sucks, but yeah.
For the most part no. As others said, I believe most employers do not even know what JLPT is.
If you have tangible skills (IT, engineering, etc etc) the less important it becomes, but it can definitely become an asset when looking for positions or employers wanting someone that can interact with coworkers/customers/clients.
Plenty of foreigners in Tokyo/Osaka who speak very little to zero Japanese and have high incomes, well the only difference being many are expats relocated by their companies.
Just myself, but have never taken JLPT and never been asked about it. Just did the interviews in Japanese to check.
Well, I have been rejected from several applications because the interviewer told me my spoken Japanese is good enough but I don’t have N1, sooo…
Same goes with English, I told my interviewer I’ve lived in an English speaking country for a year before, but they still want proof, so I had to take the piece-of-cake-easy TOEIC (fees from my own pocket) and scored 990/990 on first try. 🙄
If you’re confident in your N2+ level, why not take it? 7500 and a Sunday afternoon ain’t much.
N2 and especially N1 is more of a test of reading ability than speaking ability. A lot of companies want someone who can communicate through basic email, and they don’t want to have to translate all of their company policies, etc. into English just for a few foreign employees.
Are you really asking reddit if its ok to lie on your resume lol.
If you’re so confident just take the test?
No? Not if you’ve got skills and abilities and experience that they need badly enough to ignore your lack of Japanese ability?
​
Or you know, you could skip a night out drinking with the lads and avoid the hangover on Sunday and just do it.
why not just take it? documentation is king here. the more you have the better you would look.
though i dont need it in the IT industry, it helps a lot.