I was an ALT on JET and the job I got afterwards is basically a direct hire CIR position. I got it 100% through my connections to the previous CIR/other staff, and one coincidence with the Kacho just due to sheer luck of living in the same part of town as her.
So in my case it came down to having the right skills, some luck, and really good connections!
Prior to JET I’ve worked in Japan several times.
I ran my own business, then worked in animation. For the latter, being established in my industry and having connections had jobs reach out to me directly.
If you have experience in a relative field before applying to JET, your job hunt post-JET will be a lot easier.
I’m not sure what kind of answers you expect to get here. There must be tens of thousands of people who have finished the program and stayed in Japan getting all sorts of jobs. If you want to know how to get a job, a basic web search will get you to websites with relevant information. If there’s a specific field you’re interested in, you could post that as well.
At one of the After Jet conferences I got a job with as the first foreigner to ever be hired to this very conservative Japanese Real Estate company taking care of international student living quarters. It was terrible, I had a needlessly long hour and a half one way commute from the dorm to the office in central Tokyo every day. The hours were brutal, I was expected to work like 50 hours a week but was basically on call all the time so I often pushed 20 more than that. The dorm was awful, full of roaches, and my boss would literally take other people’s broken appliances on trash day to furnish the rooms. Once Covid hit they stopped making me come to the office but almost all of our tenants left so I spent like a year just waiting to be fired while staying home playing video games. Rather than fire me, the company had an opening at a school in Kyoto teaching a new computer science program (I knew nothing about computer science, but I guess they figured coding was in English so I was more qualified than anyone else in the company). They paid for the move so I took the opportunity. I was made the vice principal of the school because the position was vacant and they wanted to sell the novelty of it. I worked there for a year, staying a chapter ahead of my students and putting in 70 to 80 hours a week, 6 days a week, until my wife’s visa was finally approved and we were able to move to my country. Luckily my computer science skills helped me land a much better paying IT job here.
My Japanese was already good before JET so I found a job at a video game translation company, which ended up sucking because they only translated games I would never want to play and didn’t pay well enough. I went back to the U.S. and ended up going to law school and came back to work at the Tokyo office of a U.S. law firm. Echoes the point others will make – options are somewhat limited other than English teaching if you don’t have other skills before you arrive.
Has anyone ever landed a job that isn’t in a company or more teaching? I’m thinking a cafe or restaurant or something? I imagine it’s unlikely because they wouldn’t sponsor your visa but I’m curious.
I know that on student visas you can do part-time work like this. The work culture of Japanese offices isn’t very appealing
I got a job in a fintech company. But the last two years of JET, I was working on a master’s in IT online via an American university. My bachelor’s degree was unrelated to tech.
Used the money I made on JET to save for a MA degree in TESOL via Anaheim University, then got a job as an assistant professor at a private university. Had a spousal visa at first, but after a given number of years in Japan I became eligible for a permanent resident visa, so I applied for that and got it.
Is it okay to submit the JET application through embassy in Japan if you are already here?
9 comments
I was an ALT on JET and the job I got afterwards is basically a direct hire CIR position. I got it 100% through my connections to the previous CIR/other staff, and one coincidence with the Kacho just due to sheer luck of living in the same part of town as her.
So in my case it came down to having the right skills, some luck, and really good connections!
Prior to JET I’ve worked in Japan several times.
I ran my own business, then worked in animation. For the latter, being established in my industry and having connections had jobs reach out to me directly.
If you have experience in a relative field before applying to JET, your job hunt post-JET will be a lot easier.
I’m not sure what kind of answers you expect to get here. There must be tens of thousands of people who have finished the program and stayed in Japan getting all sorts of jobs. If you want to know how to get a job, a basic web search will get you to websites with relevant information. If there’s a specific field you’re interested in, you could post that as well.
At one of the After Jet conferences I got a job with as the first foreigner to ever be hired to this very conservative Japanese Real Estate company taking care of international student living quarters. It was terrible, I had a needlessly long hour and a half one way commute from the dorm to the office in central Tokyo every day. The hours were brutal, I was expected to work like 50 hours a week but was basically on call all the time so I often pushed 20 more than that. The dorm was awful, full of roaches, and my boss would literally take other people’s broken appliances on trash day to furnish the rooms. Once Covid hit they stopped making me come to the office but almost all of our tenants left so I spent like a year just waiting to be fired while staying home playing video games. Rather than fire me, the company had an opening at a school in Kyoto teaching a new computer science program (I knew nothing about computer science, but I guess they figured coding was in English so I was more qualified than anyone else in the company). They paid for the move so I took the opportunity. I was made the vice principal of the school because the position was vacant and they wanted to sell the novelty of it. I worked there for a year, staying a chapter ahead of my students and putting in 70 to 80 hours a week, 6 days a week, until my wife’s visa was finally approved and we were able to move to my country. Luckily my computer science skills helped me land a much better paying IT job here.
My Japanese was already good before JET so I found a job at a video game translation company, which ended up sucking because they only translated games I would never want to play and didn’t pay well enough. I went back to the U.S. and ended up going to law school and came back to work at the Tokyo office of a U.S. law firm. Echoes the point others will make – options are somewhat limited other than English teaching if you don’t have other skills before you arrive.
Has anyone ever landed a job that isn’t in a company or more teaching? I’m thinking a cafe or restaurant or something? I imagine it’s unlikely because they wouldn’t sponsor your visa but I’m curious.
I know that on student visas you can do part-time work like this. The work culture of Japanese offices isn’t very appealing
I got a job in a fintech company. But the last two years of JET, I was working on a master’s in IT online via an American university. My bachelor’s degree was unrelated to tech.
Used the money I made on JET to save for a MA degree in TESOL via Anaheim University, then got a job as an assistant professor at a private university. Had a spousal visa at first, but after a given number of years in Japan I became eligible for a permanent resident visa, so I applied for that and got it.
Is it okay to submit the JET application through embassy in Japan if you are already here?