Hi – as the title says Interac has informed me they wouldn’t be able to show the contact to me until I arrive in Japan and that the offer letter had all of the relevant information.
I’ve emailed them asking WHY this is the case and impressed that this is important to me, but I’m coming here for more clarity too.
Does anyone know why they do this? I can only suspect it’s because they have something to hide or are so unorganized that they can’t even put it together for some reason. Either way, at best it’s disingenuous.
17 comments
I’ve never worked for Interac but I assume that means it’s a bait and switch.
Sound rather sketchy. Seems especially sloppy sketchy even for interac.
How are you on savings? If you are ok enough to support yourself in a hostel for a month or so until you get another job then might as well use interac for a visa. If the job looks ok when you arrive sign, if its sketchy tell them F u and go grab a hostel. They will probably threaten you with a lot of BS but they would not really have any legal ground to stand on pulling something like this.
Same experience for me, but if you signed the offer for employment, and the company suddenly doesn’t have work for you, I’m pretty sure you can go to a department of labor to hold their feet to the fire or something.
It’s bullshit but it keeps them off the hook if there are issues with your entry to Japan I imagine.
While the contract is silly (includes things like half of your holidays being allocated by the company during non working times) it’s not going to be full of ridiculous stipulations.
If you’re in a driving position(likely), ask what your car stipends and costs out of pocket will look like. As for apartments, you’ll be lucky to avoid a Leo Palace but it’s not the worst place to stay til you figure out a permanent solution. The length of the housing contract is annoying though, at 6 months for a place that typically doesn’t run with fixed term contracts.
While it sucks, Interac is somewhat decent as far as ALT dispatch goes. Which isn’t saying much
When is your leave date/supposed start date? Im starting in early October this year, and have the same experience, but I think it’s because they’re waiting for people to quit/spots to open up.
Don’t you need to sign the contract at some point? Not before you apply for the visa?
I get what you’re saying. However at the same time, you know that they pay ~215 yen a month (less than 2000 USD a month), there’s no perks and you’re not paid during holidays.
What else do you want to know? Noting, there’s no room to negotiate their standard form contract. To me the particulars are irrelevant. I wouldn’t accept that sorta pay. IMO it’s a 3rd world wage that you’ll be supporting yourself off in Japan (possibly while having to own a car as well).
Nova did similar. What it was: they had 2 types of contracts you could choose from. One with more stability (actual yearly employment contract) but lower pay, the other with higher pay and bonuses but less company support (you had to do your own taxes but they also couldn’t force you to work at a different location).
Likely, they haven’t assigned you yet, so they can’t commit to your exact details, but the gist of what you’ll be expected to do and your pay are already provided.
Yeah, it’s normal sadly. There’s the optimistic and pessimistic way you can see the reasons for this. As others have stated, it could be to hide the conditions so you’re less likely to quit (sunken cost etc). The more positive reason is that they know they’ll have jobs when you arrive, but none are concrete. Meaning they’ll decide when you arrive. This usually happens for ones that start in April as most companies don’t know exactly what school district contracts they have until around February. So when they hire people before Christmas, they have no idea what jobs are actually available, and the pay and conditions differ between these jobs (slightly).
The contract includes your placement (board of education), so usually they cannot make it until the last minute of initial training which is when that is decided in many cases. The job offer they sent you is binding though, so the general terms of your employment (salary, working hours, etc) cannot be changed.
Don’t be surprised if you get ghosted for all the questions. They consider (all dispatch and eikaiwas) those that ask questions as ‘difficult’ and since they’re not desperate for bodies anymore, they might just ignore you.
But there’s not much to know. It’s a shitty around minimum wage job. I’m sure you already know that.
They likely don’t know where you’ll be placed yet. Where you’re placed will determine a lot about your position, so they can’t give you the contract yet.
Don’t get me wrong, these companies are sketchy, but they sincerely don’t know where you’re going to go.
Interac sucks and don’t expect anything but the worst from their contract.
That’s weird. I mean, email has been available here for at least two decades now.
It’s not even as if they have to draft individually tailored contracts for each and every education professional that they seek to employ.
I think it’s normal for most eikaiwa and dispatch companies because they don’t know exactly where or what time you’ll be working yet.
Because even contracts that follow the law are doing so JUST BARELY. I would not have initially come to Japan if i knew what was in store and I’ve met ppl who felt the same and even heard about ppl who took the L and turned back around back home.
These companies jump through every loophole to fuck you over and reduce your pay. All contracts are vague af because they wanna force you to do way more things than what is in the job listings description
Also. They don’t want you to actually read your contract. They want to stare you down, rushing you to make you uncomfortable while you attempt to go through it and salespitch their way around every sketchy thing in there
I can’t imagine many rational ppl would have ended up in japan if they got to see their contracts before wasting money on a plane ticket and moving expenses. Then the market wouldnt being oversaturated and they might have to actually treat foreigners like people to get them to come work and ew no! Why would they do that?!
These companies prefer new people-they prey off of the ignorance.
Look at the turnover rate of these jobs.
Anyway. You can do all the research you want. They won’t budge. Its a take it or leave it situation and if you paid to get over here and for an apartment and all… you’re not gonna walk away once you see ‘yea…. Your gonna help in the classroom buttttttt alsoooooooo you should clean the school, serve lunch, help random other non English teachers with bs, teach special needs kids ALONE, tell us every breath you take in and outside of school, oh and teach this random extra school 😀 – whats the problem??? Everyone else has loved doing these things’
It’s Interac. That’s all you need to know. Run.
Interac is a total shitshow from hell. I fail to understand why people continue to come over with them. Are people genuinely *that* desperate to come here?
They can’t give you the actual contract because it has the BOE and schools name on it. You won’t find out what school you’re in, until you’re actually sat in their office with the information docket.
If memory serves they also make you sign an NDA saying that you won’t mention the school by name on social media.
They can tell you what city you’ll be placed in, but that’s about it.