Hi reddit r/movingtojapan, i really need some advice from people who have experience moving to japan, how they handle their beginning here and maybe some of you have a better opinion/solution about my concerns.
here’s my background: i’am a single male on my late 20s, i’m a southeast asian resident, i have a bachelor degree on Visual Communication Design and i have been working on my home country for about 5 years. life’s average-good here, and my family depends on me financially.
so i have been thinking to study japanese language in japan for about 6 mo – 1 year and after that i’ll go job hunting. as you all know studying japanese language is hard and need a lot of dedication and time to study it. i have a little bit japanese skills that i picked up when i was in uni but i rarely use it here. anyway, i do realize that 1 year won’t get you to Business level japanese(N2), its achievable but its gonna be a hard grind.
**My concern** is if i don’t get N2 at the end of my study, its gonna be a waste of time since japanese language is not really popular skills when job hunting in my home country. AND after i do some research about cost of living in japan, even with a バイト its gonna cost me a lot of my savings and probably gonna make me financially unstable. so its gonna be a waste of money too.
in shorts its a big gamble for me to just study a japanese language in japan and if it fails (getting N2 and job hunting fail) i probably gonna be broke and i don’t know what to do.
so i have my PLAN B: study japanese here in my home country, getting N2 here and start job hunting from here. but from what i gather job hunting from overseas is really really hard to land a job in japan(probably other country too).
i’ve visited japan and i really like the country vibe from TOURIST POV, but i know living and visiting are two different thing on itself.
so, should i gamble or should i just go for safer option plan B.my logic telling me just go for plan B, but i have been thinking back and forth again about it and i can’t find any conclusion for myself. so i come here to hear some advice from those who experienced it. or those who have better suggestion i welcome such suggestion
p.s (i don’t hate my country, in fact i love it as it is imperfect, but i always wanted to try to start a career abroad especially in japan since i like their culture)
3 comments
Job hunting in Japan is always going to be 1,000x better than trying to job hunt from outside the country. A lot of jobs will not even consider you unless you’re already in Japan, not to mention you can’t really network in Japan from outside.
In addition to Japanese, you should also try to have a marketable skill. If your Japanese is really good (N1 level or close) you can compensate for the skills a bit or vice versa. If you’re just starting learning Japanese then you’re not going to be at that level after a year of language school though, unless you’re crazy good at learning languages.
You could try to get a job at a Japanese company if your Japanese is good enough or you could try to work at a start up or some other foreign company. I’m not sure what Communication Design is, but I have a feeling it’s not going to be an easy skill to job hunt with. You’re not going to automatically get a job just because you live there and have N3 Japanese (or even N2 necessarily), something more will be required, whether a specific skill, networking, etc.
About money, you could consider getting a teaching job to get you in the country and make a living while you self-study and pursue better opportunities. You could also try to go to grad school in Japan and get a good scholarship so money isn’t as much of an issue.
Forgetting Japan for a moment. Imagine HR and you manager interviewing a candidate for the work you’re doing right now. The candidate struggles with basic reading/writing and has difficulty keeping up with the flow of a natural conversation. They’ve spent the last two years working in a convenience store although before that they say they were working in your field in their home country. There is another candidate who has less experience on paper but there are no issues communicating with them and you’d be able to call their references to verify the claims of experience.
That’s your Plan A. Its not a very strong formula for success.
Plan B means you don’t have any lengthy resume gaps. It means your experience is fresh. Also, if an employer is prepared to hire you from abroad it means they’ll be more prepared to deal with the challenges hiring foreign talent brings. Sure there may be fewer opportunities that you can see, but those opportunities will be of a higher quality. It also means that you won’t have to worry about being able to continue financially supporting your family.
You could also look for Plan C: Find employment at the local branch of a multinational company with offices in Japan and start jockeying for a transfer to one of the Japan offices. Similar to Plan B, you’d need to get your Japanese language skills up on your own. One thing my company does for folks who want to transfer is that we make some of our recorded customer calls available to use for folks to study. So you can listen in to conversations between customers and service reps to learn industry specific vocab, some jargon, some slang, etc.
I’ve said this a million times on this sub and it seems I’ll unfortunately have to say it again (sigh): Language skills are NOT enough to get a job. I assume your end game is to learn the language to live in Japan.
Japanese citizens already speak Japanese — and fluently! What incentive does a company have to hire you, the non-native foreigner, that a Japanese citizen couldn’t do?
Let’s consider a hypothetical situation: Japanese company Sugoi Godo Kaisha has an opening for an early-career sales position. Applicant A is Yamada Taro, a Japanese citizen who graduated from Tohoku University and studied business. He has a year of experience working as a salesman for a small local manufacturing company in Sendai. Applicant B is Smith John, a foreigner who lives in Tokyo on a student visa and, thus, would require visa sponsorship. He has N2, but isn’t perfectly fluent. His writing skills are remedial. He worked in the U.S. for two years at a tech company in sales before coming to Japan to go to language schools.
Who would you hire?
You need to have skills that are lacking in the Japanese workforce, or a significant amount of experience that puts you in a senior-ish position where fluency won’t be a total requirement. For something like
> Visual Communication Design
being able to communicate with your coworkers AND clients is of upmost importance. You need to also be pretty confident with you keigo because, again, customers. I think with N2 level Japanese, you’d need to have an INCREDIBLY impressive portfolio showing work with major companies/clients to even be considered. There’s no shortage of Japanese citizens working in the fields of art, graphic design and marketing. Even with N2, what would you bring to the table?