How did you transition from teaching to IT (other job opportunities)?

17 comments

1. This has been asked 19 billion times can you use the search function PLEASE. you will need to do that a lot in IT so you’re already at a bad start

2. Not related but having a job in IT doesn’t mean you will get paid gold; the field is saturated and the salaries offered are getting less competitive and in some companies are close eikaiwa teachers

3. If you have N2. Many IT companies will take you. Lvl 1 IT help desk.
   We got a guy who started IT at ¥170,000 and we took him from our competitor. Gave him ¥25k and then half a year later..now his making ¥37k before taxes a month

4. I transitioned to owning my own company (fitness) and doing pen testing on a contract basis because having a company is easier than entering a company. /s

   Seriously though, it hasn’t been so bad as long as I have that 株 on my business card

5. I applied to companies

6. Even in IT companies want N-1, or at least N-2.

7. i am an ALT, went into I.T for 6 months, hated it and went back to an ALT. Fk sitting infront of a pc all day doing mindless work, at least with ALT work i can move around mindlessly.

8. I think that it’s important for the IT companies to see that you have the skills and preferably are able to communicate. For the latter you probably want to have at least N2. I understand that you aren’t there yet but if you study for a year or so you should be able to. For showing your skills, the best way is to work on projects. You need something that can impress the hiring manager so a bunch of online certificates aren’t usually enough, especially without a degree.

9. The hard truth here is that N4 (which you don’t even officially have) is a joke and you have no experience at all.

   I think it will be a massive uphill battle for you to get anything outside of English teaching

   People can get to an N4 level in a month of studying. Wtf have you been doing for the last four years

   I think you should at least study for and get n2 before trying to change jobs

10. Be male and ethnically Japanese. Even if you can’t function in the language, you’ll be preferred over anyone else with higher skill.

11. 4 years is long enough to be way beyond N4. You need to sit down and set some tangible goals for the near future. N2 in 18 months should be doable.

    Sounds like you don’t have much of a plan. “I wanna work in IT and leave teaching” ain’t much. Find out exactly what you want to do (taking into consideration the future of the industry), the steps to get there and make an action plan to hit them all. If not, you’ll be back here in 2025 asking the same question (at probably 15% less salary as teaching is dropping like wild).

    But before that, focus everything on getting that N2.

12. I transitioned into data analytics.

    Something you could try: Do personal projects related to whatever tech you’re interested in, at least four, maybe around thirty hours of work (or more) for each. You can follow a tutorial online for the first one or two but even then aim to put your own spin on things from day 1, and do something completely unique from scratch for the last one. Get on LinkedIn, put the technologies you used for projects in your personal tagline, then the projects themselves in your profile. Add anyone you know, then start adding recruiters.

    It could take longer than you think. For me, it was a four year process, beginning by accepting a supervisor position at my then eikaiwa, which was important just in terms of being closer to the business side of things and getting relevant experience outside of teaching. Project management, planning, in my case especially being able to work with large amounts of business data and lead some data analytics projects.

    In my free time, Did this thing called the Google Data Analytics Certificate, multiple personal projects, 100+ applications but no dice tbh. After two years of trying I finally got one interview thanks to a dashboard I posted to LinkedIn. Bombed the interview, but doubled down, taking a bit of a risk and leaving my eikaiwa job to do a data science bootcamp. 40 hours per week for 8 weeks, 850,000 yen up front. Since I paid into employment insurance I was able to qualify for a government subsidy at least. Towards the end of the bootcamp I got a contract for an analytics position earning slightly more than I was making at the eikaiwa (around 330k per month)

    Company was happy with my performance and I was offered a full-time position after about six months, earning, uh … considerably more than that.

13. Look, lets be clear, what is IT to you? What do you want to do? What areas do you want to work with? IT is like saying I want to work in food…. is that agriculture, restaurants, research, etc…..

14. I studied python, ruby, JavaScript, mainly using codecademy and a udemy python course.

    I applied to 未経験(inexperienced/no experience required) jobs in Japanese and eventually found one where my ability to speak English was helpful. If you look at Japanese job ads for it alot of them are really desperate saying they hire people with no experience, blanks on their resume etc

    So honestly I would set up alerts for 英語 and 未経験 and be ready to move if necessary. Even though I have N2 I wouldn’t have gotten a job if not for my ability to speak English.

    But before that you should pick an area in programming to focus on. Check out learnprogramming and they will help you decide. (if you mean really IT as in setting up routers in companies or other infrastructure stuff, then no idea)

15. I got good Japanese.

16. Hard truths:

    N4 is nothing. Even companies that tend to operate mostly in English want at least N3 if not more because it eases communication with non-English speakers in the company. Without some higher Japanese ability, you’ll be trying for jobs that millions of others are trying to apply for because they don’t have the ability or want to use Japanese in the workplace. Higher Japanese with higher qualifications = higher chances.

    It’s hard finding GOOD programmers in Japan, let alone decent enough juniors. Regardless of background, there’s plenty of bad programmers applying for jobs. For a junior, you can’t just have some classes under your belt and worthless “certs” but have some great work and projects under your belt, show your skills, and be ready to hit the ground running.

    I went from teaching to IT. I buckled down, got my JP to N2, took a year and a half to study web development and made great projects with challenging features, and tackled interviews like crazy. Then on the opposite end, I’ve done hiring for my company, and it’s hell trying to go through juniors or even people with a year or two of experience.

17. Careercross.com – but reality is, many companies in JP don’t advertise directly. It’s mostly through recruiters. And such majority of the job postings you will see online is from sharks looking for a commission.

    My advice is, get in touch with as many recruiters as possible and let them do the work for finding you a job. They might at least get you some interviews.

    Don’t fall for “I saw your resume online and we need someone with your experience!”, Recruiters send en mass fishing emails. No one read your resume. Don’t be afraid of saying no if they recommend jobs that have nothing to do with what you wanted. Again, theyr looking for commissions. Use it to your advantage.

    You don’t need jlpt. But don’t confuse it with not needing the ability to speak japanese. I work in fully English speaking office, but an assistant will still sneak up on you with japanese, or you might need to make calls somewhere and need to speak japanese (e.g. you’ll need to warranty a laptop). I agree with what others said, what the heck did you do the past 4 years.

    Without jlpt your looking for at least business lvl japanese.