Hi, folks.
I’d like to read some first-hand accounts of people who went through the hiring process and/or spent any amount of time working for AC.
Accounts of time spent under them are a bit scarce on the internet, so I’m wondering if anyone here has some recent experiences with them. I’d like to hear the opinions of those directly familiar with them. TIA.
8 comments
What do you want to know?
I’ve worked for them for three years. Currently they’re going through some staffing issues in the office. Last year quite a few people left/retired, but they didn’t hire anyone to train/replace them. So people in the office are overworked and burnt out and generally annoyed, which does rub off on the ALTs sometimes.
Of course the pay is just barely enough, depending on the cost of living in your city/town. But like the other commenter said, we get paid through summer, winter, and spring vacations. Other companies don’t do that. I have various expenses that other people may not have, and I don’t feel like I’m scraping by. I do have to forego traveling and activities sometimes, but that’s standard wherever you are in the world.
The General Union just had a presentation about the working conditions of ALTs and Diet members and city officials were present. If you’re already an ALT, I highly recommend joining.
How recent? I stopped working for them in 2020. I know someone who left because they didn’t enjoy how things were run anymore.
I enjoyed my time there. My location/BOE was fantastic. Only issue is that if you’re getting overwhelmed or going through a rough patch, oftentimes it feels like they’ll try to slap a band-aid on it and try to get you working at top performance. You’re at the mercy of your BOE. If they make you miserable, ALTIA will encourage you to thrive in misery- encouragingly, but still, it doesn’t make it easier.
Also, Glassdoor has a lot of ALTIA reviews.
I worked for ALTIA Central up to 2021. Short version is, they were good… until they weren’t.
Generally, Altia has elementary and junior high school contracts- though you might see a high school one every now and then. Much of their emphasis tends to be on elementary schools though.
Their pay is probably the only thing that makes them any “better” than other dispatch company- I went from 210,000 a month (Interac) to 240,000 a month. So it was actually a pay increase.
The biggest con, if you ask me, is precisely because many of their contracts are close to their home office in Nagoya- they are EXTREMELY micromanaging.
Also, the way they do cars is very odd- they do have driving positions, but these are also micromanaged. You get two options if you’re in a driving position: either you completely stick to the route that takes you from your apartment to school and back with NO deviations… or you pay extra to be able to have I think about up to 60 km of “extra” distance. In other words, they don’t want you doing a ton of personal driving. That never applied to me, though- I was in a city with good public transportation.
One more thing about them- I really did enjoy my time with Altia, but in the end, they proved to be just another dispatch company. I have my theories on other reasons why, but the short version is that apparently I managed to fall into “endangering their contract with the BoE” territory, and by the time I found this out, getting a position in another city with them became impossible- or more accurately, they said all other positions had been filled for the year. So on paper, because I decided to play nice, it looks like I willingly resigned, but I was actually forced out due to contract issues.
The only other thing to be cautious about is that in some cities, they actually are decreasing your summer vacation- I heard from a current employee that they’re increasing the number of summer camp options and you’re supposed to work at those during August.
I left 2 years ago.
I thought they were unprofessional and can only imagine what it’s like now that another user said the office has lost staff.
Most of my problems were small things that just added up. I was in a shit apartment in a terrible location. The office lost some of my paperwork then passive aggressively blamed it on me. They refused to reimburse some work transportation expenses. The training from their best trainer who quit later was mediocre and things i already knew. And a variety of other small problems where they were little to no help.
Otherwise, for a first time grad starting your first job, i don’t think they’re bad. But for the pay, i would not recommend working dispatch at all. Treat it as a 1 year working holiday if you must. Their long summer and winter holidays are nice too.
In the 2020s I applied before covid and I went through 2 rounds with them. Then based on language skills I wasn’t selected. I’ve tried reapplying years later this year but they never even emailed me a rejection letter. The man I talked to in NYC in 2019 seemed to like me. So it may have been they either had a backlog of enough people, or because I can’t drive.
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Tbh they are more reputable than NOVA or Borderlink but still it’s ALT’ing so at a certain point you can’t stay or will stagnate wage wise. Can someone add to this with employee experience?
Thanks for asking, this has really helped prepare me vet them out
I quit a couple months ago.
In the year I worked for them I met 9 ALTS in their company that started the same time as me. All but 2 quit. 6 of them mid-contract.
(1 around June, 1 in august, 1 in September, 1 in December, 1 in April, 1 in May)
Like clockwork.
I’ll try to keep this easy to read.
Management is unorganized and messy.
– they told me they would manage my visa online. When it became too hard they asked me to do it. This resulting in me working for them on a visa that was NOT a instructor visa for two months
– They tried to keep my my number card. I had to ask for it to be returned
– they spelt my name incorrectly for almost a year despite constant reminders
– they didn’t give me an employee number until I reminded them maybe 5 times. By then it was near the end of my first year with them.
Supervisors are nasty
– two grown men attempted to bully me into ‘admitting’ other alts / me talked badly about the company.
– constantly degraded us
– didn’t listen to our concerns and then when they became a problem blamed us.
– was told one thing by one supervisor and then told off for doing it by another
– gaslighting at its finest
Training is also absolutely horrific.
Honestly all ALT companies are horrible but I had a horrific time with Altia and was looking for new work before September ended.