So I’m a HS grad, with 10 years experience as Game QA and some experience as a call center agent
I understand that a college diploma is very important, to move to Japan, But I’m looking for a way to get a job in Japan so that I can live there.
I’m good with just livable wage. I can change field if necessary. I can try to get certification if needed for some skills.
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This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
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**Want to move to Japan even if it’s improbable, as long as it is not impossible**
So I’m a HS grad, with 10 years experience as Game QA and some experience as a call center agent
I understand that a college diploma is very important, to move to Japan, But I’m looking for a way to get a job in Japan so that I can live there.
I’m good with just livable wage. I can change field if necessary. I can try to get certification if needed for some skills.
​
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Sure, bring about $30,000 to get set up and you can find work as a dishwasher.
>I can change field if necessary.
Without a completed education you’d need 10 years of documented relevant experience. So changing fields would be detrimental to your efforts.
Are you capable of searching for work in your field purely in Japanese (eg, you don’t need to use Google translate or other inline translation tools)? If so, by all means good luck. I can’t imagine a resume with no postsecondary education making it past HR though.
If you’re not able to function in Japanese, maybe work on that. But don’t quit your day job, you need that experience both to get past immigration and to get past HR recruitment teams.
It’s not impossible. If moving to Japan is your goal then start working towards it.
Here are some thoughts:
– Start learning Japanese, not just casually but fully immerse yourself as much as possible. Take the Japanese fluency tests so you can measure your progress.
– Get a degree. Besides teaching English, the other two popular paths to living in Japan are working in IT or for a foreign company. If you have QA experience then I would recommend software development degree.
– Work for a Japanese company or a company with a presence in Japan. Maybe you can get lucky enough to be transferred. Make sure you stick with the company and be a dedicated employee, once you build up seniority it will be easier to land an overseas assignment.
Good luck! I live in Japan and I did the work for a foreign company route.
Enroll in a language school, get a student visa, work part-time, network and find someone to sponsor a work visa. Or find someone to marry and get a spouse visa.
Not impossible at all. All completely within your reach.
1. Finish your degree.
2. Get experience (that is valuable in Japan). Move out of QA. Do anything to work your way into a dev team or a production operations team. (this is optional)
3. Start studying Japanese NOW.
You don’t provide any information about your Japanese language level. That’s honestly crucial here.
Minimum N2 is usually the standard for employability here. Coming for language school for a few years is a good idea to build your language skills more quickly, however that would create a gap in your resume that could sink you without a related post secondary degree.
My recommendation is to get a bachelor’s degree in your home country while keeping your full-time job, study Japanese while completing that degree, then see if you can come to Japan. Would probably be easiest for you to come as an inter-company transfer, so with the degree and the experience and the Japanese language skills, either you can see if your current company would be willing to transfer you to a branch in Japan (if applicable) or switch to a company where that could be a feasible option. Good luck!
Follow the advice some have already given you.
Start learning Japanese, work on getting a bachelor’s degree, pivot to something in-demand or stay where you are to gain 10+ years experience. (Check out the job market first-what is in demand for foreigners)
I’m also working on moving to Japan. My husband and I are learning Japanese, I’m going back to school and we’re going full tilt into savings.
Meanwhile we’re decluttering and before we buy things we ask ourselves “Will I be taking this to Japan? If not, am I okay with giving it away or selling it in 5-7 years”?
It’s a long plan. The timeline is fairly loose since it depends on how long it takes me to earn my degree and get to at least N3 but preferably N2 or N1.
I understand how much you want to just *go*. But planning is going to be key. Take the time to learn the language while you further your education or get more experience in the field.
go to a vocational school, get a degree there. But keep in mind you’ll be able to only work in that field and can’t swap without enrolling to another 2 years of school. The requirements are: you need money for 2 years worth of tuition and accommodation and be fluent in japanese cause courses are only in japanese. So you could just go to language school for 1 or 2 years to get to that point and then go to vocational school. but you’d need another 2 years worth of money to stay there and for the tuition. Honestly the only bottleneck is money.
I saved as much money as possible to afford japanese language school there for 2 years. That’s already more than I hoped for a few years ago, but my plan is to of course pass the JLPT N1, and also obtain a scolarship by getting excellent results at the EJU so I can afford uni there. The idea is to get my degree in Japan, so it’ll be easier to find a job there afterwards.
That’s just my 6 years plan, but maybe that can give you some ideas. To get a work visa, you will *need* a degree anyway, so maybe a student visa first would be a fun and useful way to get there.