I’m a EU nationa living in UK, with a Japanese BA and near-native Japanese skills. I’ve secured a front office position at a luxury hotel in Tokyo, but there’s been some unusual communication.
They didn’t mention the contract in the acceptance email, yet they’re proceeding with my visa. They initially said the visa may take a couple of month but nothing was mentioned about the contract u til I asked last week to with they only responded “it will take a while” Is it normal not to receive the contract until later? They are also not helping with residency. I’m concerned about the process as well as I dont want to have to spontaneously have to buy a ticket for Japan.
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This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
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**Is this company gonna be shit to work for?**
I’m a EU nationa living in UK, with a Japanese BA and near-native Japanese skills. I’ve secured a front office position at a luxury hotel in Tokyo, but there’s been some unusual communication.
They didn’t mention the contract in the acceptance email, yet they’re proceeding with my visa. They initially said the visa may take a couple of month but nothing was mentioned about the contract u til I asked last week to with they only responded “it will take a while” Is it normal not to receive the contract until later? They are also not helping with residency. I’m concerned about the process as well as I dont want to have to spontaneously have to buy a ticket for Japan.
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I did not receive my contract until later; basically after the COE was completed. I was able to fix my start date a reasonable amount of time after the COE was issued to cover the visa processing time and getting organised.
Note while the visas often take only a few days to be issued; the embassies of japan have been extremely busy with the tourist spike – as such I had to wait a month for my visa appointment.
This may vary by region, my home country has a lot of foreign permanent residents who do not have visa-free access to Japan and as such processes a lot of tourist visas despite citizens having visa free status.
Your local embassy website should be able to guide you on how busy they are at present.
>They didn’t mention the contract in the acceptance email, yet they’re proceeding with my visa.
The CoE application process would require a description of working conditions and proposed salary. So they already know what they’re planning on paying you. If they haven’t shared this information with you its a sign that the amount will probably be lower than you’re expecting. It also implies that salary structure is fairly rigid and likely based on time served (which is pretty common with companies in Japan).
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> Is it normal not to receive the contract until later?
While I’d expect a tentative contract or some sort of agreement, usually formal contracts include specific dates, which they can’t really write down until the CoE has been issued since that process normally takes anywhere from 1 to 3 months (and in some cases can take quite a bit longer). If you have a pretty good idea of the terms of your employment already (salary, duties, benefits, etc) then I wouldn’t worry. But if they’re just steaming ahead while you keeping you fully in the dark about the details that’s a pretty big red flag.
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>They are also not helping with residency
They’re not getting you set up with temporary accommodations for your first month or even first week? That sucks. Check the housing wiki here then for some short term accommodation options so that at least you’ll have somewhere to go upon arrival.
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>I’m concerned about the process as well as I dont want to have to spontaneously have to buy a ticket for Japan.
That’s unfortunately a pretty normal part of the process. Since again, the CoE process can take several months (or not) you shouldn’t book plane tickets until you’ve got it issued. Typically once the CoE is issued you’ll have 3 months to get the visa issued and then come to Japan. So you’ll have *some* wiggle room. Hopefully you’ll be coming during a low period in tourism and air travel won’t break the bank. Again, it sucks that they’re not paying for the flight for you.