EEducation in Japan

Looking for perspectives between two companies.

Hey there.
I’ve come to ask about perspectives between two different companies such as what you’ve heard about/experienced with them and what you would recommend.
I am happily engaged at the moment and am also expecting another addition to the family in May.
I have had offers from Nova and Borderlink to begin working with them next year. I am currently working as an alt but under my current company, I do not feel confident in the amount of income currently coming out of my current company.
I’ve worked for this ALT company for 2 years and if I were to take the job with Borderlink, I would likely get placed back around where I worked last year. I just worry about the summer period as Borderlink has said that they don’t offer compensation for the summer. I like the schedule of Borderlink a bit more, however.
The other company is Nova and I have no experience working in an eikaiwa. From what I was told in my initial interview, there are more chances for raises within Nova. The schedule is not quite to my taste with a new family being started. I feel like I would miss out on much with the development of the little one but I would have more money than my current dispatch company at least.
Any advice/perspectives are welcome. I’m looking forward to any stories you may have about either company.

13 comments

  1. You won’t have that much more money with Nova. Stick to ALT gigs. Better hours, and you won’t have to miss out on time with your family.

  2. You want to move up the food chain by getting a job at either Nova or Borderlink? Where do you work now, dare I ask?

  4. You won’t get raises at Nova. From my experience they only paid bonuses based on the type of class you taught and if you aren’t a popular teacher you’ll only make the basic income. I left several years ago and from what I’ve heard the pay has just been getting cheaper and increasing the work loads. And if you’re not part of a union they’ll do everything they can to take advantage of you. They also didn’t pay anything during long holidays when I was there. So the 1-2 weeks off for Christmas meant half a paycheck right after a big holiday.

  5. Borderlink and NOVA are not upgrades. The bitter truth is that unless you aquire a Masters Degree and teaching lisence you won’t find anything better than entry level English teaching in Japan.

    You can learn Japanese and find better jobs in marketing/business if you can speak at N2 fluently. And you’ll enjoy better career growth if you learn a programming language and find tech work.

    But unless you commit to learning a skill/furthering your education you won’t find better work. That’s not an opinion. It’s a cold hard truth.

  7. I don’t intend to be mean here, but your post makes me sad. If you have a family, you really should be aiming higher. From what I understand, you’d be better off working at McD’s than Borderlink. Last I heard they paid like 200,000/month, NO transportation, NO benefits. You’d have to get a second job just to make ends meet.

    I don’t know your situation, but I’d consider staying put and working my butt off to improve my skills and job prospects in the next year.

  8. You can absolutely do better. Don’t work for those companies, especially if you’re going to start supporting a family. Borderlink’s salary is terribly low—barely enough to support one person. The “travel expenses” are “included” in the salary and they only cover up to 20,000円. So you’re looking at possibly being offered between 220-235,000円 pre-tax. Aside from the salary, if you’re offered a Junior High position, you might get lucky and only teach at 1-2 schools, but if you’re offered elementary you’re looking at 3-8 schools. It can be extremely exhausting if you’re not used to it. The chances of them having a high school position is extremely rare, but not impossible. Just saying JH and elementary are probably 90% guaranteed in any offer they make. You already have 2 years of experience under your belt, so you can definitely find something better. Apply to anything and everything on gaijinpot and any other job board. Did you work at elementary schools? There’s loads of international schools that pay way higher than dispatch companies. Eikaiwas pay more than these low paying dispatch ALT gigs, so apply to those places as well. Now is the perfect time to find a better job for the new school year.

  10. You are having a family, aim much higher. If you want to go the eikaiwa route at least aim at AEON or Berlitz as they pay more than NOVA. Really u should be getting a way better ALT job than borderlink and lining up a second job for the evenings/Saturday.

  11. With all respect, referring to Nova or Borderlink as a step up feels quite depressing.
    There’s probably not that much difference in wages, so if those are your only options then I suggest taking the ALT gig so you still have the more sociable hours.

    Perhaps look into applying directly to some private schools that maybe hiring next year? Get your CV sent out to as many schools as you can.

    Or try and find a side skill that you can level up on…
    I genuinely don’t mean this as a flex, I just want to open your eyes to some possibilities – but I started photography as a side hustle and, for example, I made 230,000 the other weekend shooting some corporate event. I believe that would be more than the whole borderline monthly salary.

  12. ‘No raises’ is literally written into Nova’s employee salary guidelines. The pay is at the Tokyo poverty line, hits maybe 200,000, if you’re lucky.

  13. With 2 years experience you should start looking at direct hire positions or private school dispatchers to increase your pay.

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