I have been working in a franchise after-school for just over two years. The work itself is manageable. Boss, colleagues even the parents are nice. However the working hours and pay are shit (11am-8pm, 2.6M). My health has been getting worse from dealing with the kids and the stress from having little time to spend with my husband (who works 9am-5pm). Now, I have been offered a 副施設長 position for next April. Work hours are still the same and pay is 250k, but OT might be replaced by 役職手当. It sounds to me that the company just want a cheap babysitter-admin-teacher in one. I really don’t want to take the offer.
In the meantime, I have been looking for another job for about 8 months, but being in my late 30s with zero corporate experience in Japan seem to make things very difficult. I only got referred to 150k+40 hours OT positions, until several weeks ago one of the haken agencies asked me to apply for a position at a big gaishikei corp. It’s a 9-6, 4M communications related job. I passed the interview, and have just been offered the position. Everything sounds great, except it’s haken – which makes me nervous about the prospects. I do want to leave the school asap though so I’m leaning towards taking the offer.
Sorry for the long post.
“Would haken at a big company fuck up my future more than my after-school job?” is my question. I’m 37, on a spouse visa.
25 comments
Honestly if you are trying to transition out of teaching it sounds like the haken job is a great start to that – if you stay there for a while and build some experience you can start working towards applying for a permanent job. Worst case if the contract ends and you can’t get something lined up i’m sure you’d be able to find another teaching job.
I don’t think there really is much of a career path for after-school jobs, so taking this job seems like the start to building your future rather than fucking it up!
Take it. You can always return to teaching if needed. This pays much more and is a good way to get some experience on paper.
I worked at a Haken right out of university and I eventually transitioned to a seishyain. I definitely wouldn’t dismiss the credibility of Haken work.
The Haken job could be a good way to get experience and get a full time job later down the road.
I would say take a chance and go for it.
Haken doesn’t mean it’s bad, it’s a way to get your first experience and it can eventually lead to a permanent position
Even if they don’t renew your contract passing the year, you will already have some experience to show up when trying to find another job somewhere else
Changing career comes with some risks, you are on a spouse visa so you don’t have any pressure coming from being tied to a company
and you can still come back to teaching in the WORST case.
Good luck, I also changed my career here last year and now everything’s going much better (I used to be in food industry and now in IT)
You’ll make over 1.5x more, you’ll get experience that other employers will need to see to consider you for other positions ***and*** you’ll get yourself out of a job you dislike.
250k/mo “babysitter-admin-teacher” jobs seem to be a dime a dozen, you can find another one if this job doesn’t work out for you.
Hakens pretty typical these days from my circle of friends. Rejoice, sounds like mission accomplished, grats OP.
Has the gaishikei corp indicated whether they would consider bringing you on full-time in the long-term? Some haken positions have the express purpose of onboarding someone after a haken trial period, which would make the offer even more enticing.
Even if not, though, this sounds like a good way out, as everyone else has been saying.
Take the dispatch job
Take the dispatch! Honestly, do it.
I’m in my 40s and got out of teaching through a haven. Took a pay cut but a recent raise lifted me to the level of what I was earning before.
It’s in the contract that I would be considered for full employee status after the 3 years. Of course there’s no guarantee and even what that would mean. It doesn’t matter to me right now.
I’m getting experience in an interesting field. My mental health has dramatically improved after a year, and if it doesn’t work out I’m in a much better position to apply for other non-teaching jobs because of this experience.
If your health is suffering, don’t wait. Get out now.
Some friends of mine have taken haken jobs that transitioned to direct employment after 3 years or so. I get the impression that haken is a pretty normal thing to do. I’d take it. The work you do at the company that you’re dispatched to is gonna matter more than the fact that you were dispatched rather than hired directly. _Especially_ if the big company is one people have heard of, they won’t care if you were haken’d there.
I used to work in ‘murica under a haken-type contract to the company I actually worked for, so tbh the only complicated thing was that my pay came from a different company. Otherwise it was the same experience as just being an employee there. My friend who was on haken confirmed that it was basically the same for him in Japan.
I would take the haken job. I work at a global gaishikei so I don’t have a great understanding of the company/industry you are currently working in (though it sounds like Kid’s Duo). I did teach at NOVA many years ago. From that experience, I am not sure how beneficial seishain really is at such a company.
OTOH, your contract offer sounds like something that will instantly give you more money and a new experience with the chance to learn a new role.
These days, haken rules/contracts are more protective than they were 20 years ago, too.
You may even get the opportunity to be a seishain at the company you work for. You may not too. IME, we have hired hakens because we can’t get budget approval for a seishain. But it does happen sometimes, and, you meet people who may have a F/T open position in another department.
I say…go for it!
2万六千per? Week? How you live?
As recommended by others, take the haken job. You can always go back into teaching if it doesn’t work out.
Take it.
Better pay, hours, and learning opportunities, while teaching jobs are a dime a dozen and are an easy fall-back position.
Go for it. Haken is not bad and it’s a good stepping stone to get out of teaching. I started as haken in an IT company too. I apparently became important enough for the company to employ me as seishain.
You can’t really be choosy for your first big boy/girl pants job out of English teaching. Take it and work your way to other jobs that have better pay and conditions.
> I passed the interview, and have just been offered the position. Everything sounds great, except it’s haken – which makes me nervous about the prospects. I do want to leave the school asap though so I’m leaning towards taking the offer.
#TAKE IT!!
Absolutely. It’s your ticket out of teaching, giving you the corp experience that you lack in Japan.
What’s the absolute worst that could happen? That you end up going back to teaching again? You’re already there now. Nothing to lose, potentially a LOT to gain.
You can always go back to a teaching position but not many opportunities at working at a big company even if it’s haken. Now you’ll also gain the experience you badly needed. This will open a bunch of possibilities for you as well.
If you want to transition out of teaching English, this is a great opportunity. The time and pay is not so different, so your lifestyle won’t be affected that much. But it will be something to put on your resume that isn’t just 英会話. And you’ll be getting experience working in an actual Japanese office environment.
Just getting a non-teaching position into your work history will be a huge help in letting you jump to more non-teaching jobs in the future.
Right now your future is teaching at an after-school program. There is literally no future there to fuck up. I don’t mean that jokingly. There is no promotion there. You’ll never earn much more. ANY time you want to do this job again, you replicate your current situation with a couple months (or weeks) job search.
Take the job.
Have you thought about taking time off to certify in something? What were your skills before Japan? Could you utilize them?
If your Japanese is up to N3 you could go to hello work for upgrade training as well, if you wanted to learn programming or something of the likes.
My Japanese friends say haken is bad but if you have no skills it’s not a terrible idea to build some – and reply to a seishain job in a year or so?
I denied a haken at a favorable placement because the pay was so low and the opportunity to become seishain was not to be offered. I ended up finding something close to what I wanted but would of really liked to work for a bigger reputable name company.
Either way just get your gears going and in the future you can always change – anything is almost always better than teaching it seems.
>Everything sounds great, except it’s haken – which makes me nervous about the prospects.
I started out as Haken and got a permanent position after almost 3 years. If you are a 派遣社員, they have to either offer you a direct position or let you go after 3 years in the same position. So that can be a bit of a gamble.
However, I’ve written you a handy pros and cons list:
Staying at your company:
(-) Pay still low, hours still shitty
(-) Possibly be the baby sitter for FOBs
(+) You won’t have to risk anything, the evil you know etc. etc.
Moving to another company:
(-) Scary af
(+) Pay higher, better working hours
(+) You’ll gain new skills, so even if you are let go, you will find it easier to find a new position on at least the same level
(+) Probably a lot less stress
—
Or in short: Do it. I’m extremely glad I did.
Your future self will thank you. take the brave step forward OP. leave behind the teaching hellhole. We are cheering you on!
Main question: can you take the financial hit if things go south?
If you have some saving / can rely on hubby, take the money, get used to corpolife, start looking for the next position around 9mo mark, then either you’ll find something better by the time you’ve put 1 year in this new company, or maybe you get promoted in the company.
P.S. if you’re going to have children, plan in advance, obv.