Hi.
I have just been turned down by Yaruki Switch after my first ever interview. (some say I’ve dodged a bullet, I don’t know what to think but that is not the point)
I have been thinking that maybe going for smaller companies that do not have thousands of applicants every day would be a better option for me, especially since I am non-native.
The problem is that job sites have mostly big companies that keep ignoring me. How do you find the small-medium ones?
I would guess that the best option is to find their site and contact them directly since they do not appear on job sites, but they are nowhere to be found.
As long as you find it by looking it up on Google it is already popular so I am at a loss.
Thank you!
15 comments
Word of mouth- talk to people.
Regional and local Facebook groups for jobs. Most jobs I’ve had in Japan I’ve found there. The best jobs I’ve ever had I’ve found there.
Edit: do you already live in Japan? Because small companies aren’t going to bring you over. They only hire if you’re already in Japan.
I found my first very tiny eikiwa on esl cafe, but I had to literally search every day on it.
My second bigger eikiwa on gaijin pot.
My very puny out in the boonies eikiwa also on gaijin pot
Why would you want to? The horror stories from the inaka small ones are far worse than anything that goes on at Nova. There are quite a few that run completely illegally and pay their “teachers” zero, yes they work unpaid, because they have them come on tourist visas and tell them to go home on day 80.
I got lucky with Gaijin Pot years ago. I was not in Japan and was searching closer to the usual time when already hired teachers were starting to head over to Japan.
Found an Eikawa whose teacher changed their mind a couple of weeks before they were supposed to fly over. The school was a bit desperate, I was ready to leave my crap job / crap relationship. They were willing to take steps to help me get my visa figured out.
Two weeks later I was in Japan. I don’t think my experience was/is very common, but it happens. Best of luck to you.
[Ohayosensei.com](https://www.ohayosensei.com/) seemed (when I used to look at it) to have many notices from smaller conversation schools (or at least ones I’ve/I’d never heard of); you may find, however, that many smaller conversation schools have more stringent criteria than the big chains and that they are not easier to get in to: a hiring decision for a small group, after all, is more important than one for a big company.
Networking, social media, local english language news sites,
They don’t advertise for teachers on the big job-hunting sites because they generally hire in-country and don’t sponsor visas. There are plenty of people already working in Japan, and it saves them time and money to hire those who have already been here a while. And the language school that are decent to work for don’t hire that often because their employees tend to stay with them for a long time. When you do see an ad from one of them, it’s a rare occurrence. And if you keep seeing ads from the same one, take it as a red flag – it means teachers leave, and teachers leave for a good reason.
Those big companies hire all the time because they hire en masse and their employees leave en masse. They are generally shitty companies because of that: they see their recruits as cattle, not people. Hire easily, and quit or fire people easily.
Teaching in Japan is not the paradise people try to make it out to be. For a short-term holiday it’s fine, since you’ll go home in a year and have lots of stories to tell as you start a completely different career. For long term, however, it’s really not tenable unless you’re willing to get the qualifications necessary to teach professionally.
Omg. My friend just got let go by that company!
You did dodge a bullet.
She was there for barely a couple months.
She needed to ask to get paid several times after they missed paying her.
They were unprepared with necessary documents for immigration.
And a few other problems such as sending her hours away from where she lived to work.
I doubt my friend is the ideal worker, but those parts of her experience there are proof that the company itself isn’t worth working for.
You dodged a bullet.
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I found mine on ohayosensei.com. I’d start looking in December for an April school year start.
I work at Peppy Kids Club, if you’ve heard of it. They’re not awful to work for but sometimes the classes are so late that you don’t get home till 10 ~ 10:30. If you’re interested I could give you some details. They’re always hiring. I do want to mention that the training period is quite gruelling, though. Two weeks of pure misery but the job itself isn’t that bad.
*Edit: Also, as far as I know they will hire you even if you aren’t in Japan currently. Some new hires that I work with came directly from Australia, Zimbabwe, and Great Britain. I don’t think you’ll have any problems as long as your interview goes well.
I’ve used sites like (Dave’s) ESL Cafe or even Indeed to find job postings from local schools quite successfully. Of course, I applied to those schools directly rather than through a “middle man” just to ensure direct communication.
Look on [JobsinJapan.com](https://JobsinJapan.com). The other sites are too expensive to post on so we get a lot of the small independent English conversation schools.
Are you in Japan? If so, be sure to go to the ETJ Expos ([https://ltprofessionals.com/expos/](https://ltprofessionals.com/expos/)) as the last session of the day is always the school owners forum where all the small English school owners get together to talk. Great networking and professional development.
If you are being ignored by some of the employers, I wonder if you need help writing an effective cover letter and/or resume.
Fuck Yaruki Switch, they’re awful.