Hey r/japanlife I’m currently in my early 30s and I’ve been working in non-IT industries in my previous country. However, I’m excited to share that I’m about to complete my IT degree from a reputable university. As I wrap up my studies, I’m also following the common path of living in Japan as an English teacher.
Despite having a well put together resume and writing decent cover letters, I haven’t received a whole lot of responses to job applications.
If any of you have made the switch from a non-IT background to an IT career, I would love to hear the path you took. Your experienced and insights would be pretty valuable to me as I try to make the transition myself. Whether it’s about job searching or networking, anything you can offer I’d really appreciate it.
9 comments
Do you have N2 or above?
I’ve done IT in USA for 10 years and speak enough Japanese to land jobs in Japan once I moved here. Currently working in IT doing recruitment for our company and some others. Many requests N2 or above. Real hard to fill in the roles cuz not many have N2 AND some IT skills.
Use job seeking agencies if you haven’t already. They may be annoying when you don’t need them, but when you do they are helpful.
American? My place is hiring on Yokota AB but wont happen until August. Tax free salary with SOFA status.
Ambitious of you to ask career advice in a sub full of ALTs…
IT is somewhat broad. I’ve noticed that programming jobs generally don’t require strong Japanese skills. If you’re going into programming specifically, I would say your tech skills are more important than your Japanese.
Copy pasting my comment in another thread as it might help you which IT job to pursue:
Unpopular advice: If you love dev, programming or any hands on tech work, dont target to have N2. You will be fine at tech jobs that do not require Japanese.
If you got n2 or just even n3, most of the time they will only make you a “bridge engineer” in which you will spend your most of your time translating, interpreting, dealing with bs japanese clients, coordinating and not actually doing hands on tech work
Source: i am a bridge engineer who serves as sponge to absorb rude remarks and BS from Japanese clients, on behalf of my team
I went for certifications to make up for the lack of IT experience. I also found a role where they luckily needed an English speaker. Applied through Indeed.
Get in contact with a recruiter that genuinely wants to help you. (if someone is sending you non automated emails regularly with offers, apply to literally all of them and stay in contact) 0 experience and an unfinished degree means you’ll need someone to vouch for you to get your foot in the door. At least, that was my experience.
Do you have N2? If not, start grinding. You need to be able to convince them that you can at least speak at that level. The low JP jobs are for people with experience.
Finally, if you’re still employed, don’t settle for a shitty deal. The first place I got a reply from, I told them I wanted at least 3.25 mil a year and they laughed out of the interview then ghosted me. 3 months of searching later I landed a position for significantly more than that, full remote, and more interesting work. Don’t give up.
Question, what’s the University you are getting your degree from? Is it online? I’ve been looking into studying an IT degree while living here