ALTIA vs INTERAC

8 comments

1. Why dont you tell us mote about yourself so we can know what you are like and what woukd be a good match?

2. OP appears to be humble bragging about having two possible job options in Japan.

   Going back to the question. Altia and Interac are two sides of the same backside.

3. Climate-wise Hokkaido and Nagoya are vastly different. Stating the obvious, sure, but it is a big thing to consider. Which do you like better? Bitter cold winters and milder summers or summers from hell and milder winters?

   I lived in Nagoya for a few years. I really enjoyed it. Summer was pretty hot, especially wearing a mask during the pandemic. Downtown is big but doesn’t feel as crowded as Tokyo. Lot’s of places for eating and drinking. A growing craft beer scene. Overall, I really enjoyed living there. A big town with a smaller town feel kind of.

   I can’t speak to any experience in living in Hokkaido, but I did have a good time in Sapporo when I visited a few years back.

   Best of luck with your 1-2 year experience. I did the same thing 19 years ago…. But honestly, I am happy I stuck it out and continued down the education career path here.

4. Apply for the JET program. Your best ALT option. Downside to JET is that you don’t get to choose location. You get put where they need you, so maybe Tokyo, maybe some rural country school three hours by car from the nearest city.

   Dispatch ALT is ok, but they take a large chunk of your pay (40,000 to 60,000) for just providing the schools with their services of bringing you over.

   Direct-hire through a local BOE would be a good ALT option as you’re working directly for the schools. This requires a bit of Japanese in most cases, some social savvy, and a good work ethic. But offers decent pay for English teachers in Japan (250,000 to 270,000) and you don’t have to work for a dispatch/eikaiwa company.

   Eikaiwa are hit-or-miss. You’ll find that some lessons are engaging and fun while others make you want to gouge your eyes out with boredom. The company you work for will intentionally stress you out just to stop you from leaving. And the big ones like NOVA are turning into gaijin-traps targeting starry-eyed foreigners who love anime.

   Let me stress this.

   There is no *good* option for someone with just a bachealor’s degree.

   If you want to live and work in Japan and actually make something of yourself you need to-

   1. Get a Master’s Degree and Teaching Lisence in your home country. Do this and you can apply for any university/international school job. Only takes 2 years to get these qualifications. And you’ll have an advantage over 95% of other foreigners running away to Japan.

   2. Learn Japanese. You can reach N2 Japanese in under a year with daily practice and by applying it to your daily life. You’ll sound funny and mess up the grammar at times, but you’ll be able to speak, read, and write enough of the language to find better jobs.

   3. Turn a marketable skill into a hobby. Programming/marketing is the best one. Tech jobs in Japan often just require any degree and passing a competency test, so you can self-learn coding as a hobby and then find entry level tech work. Tech jobs are a good option since work experience = career advancement. Working 10 years as an English teacher doesn’t mean much more than working 1 year as an English teacher. But working 10 years as a software developer will offer opportunities with more pay and benefits. It doesn’t have to be programming, but other pathways will require you to take classes and show that you actually are advancing.

   Or you can go to China instead and make 2x to 3x as much money with just an undergraduate degree and quickly find university jobs without needing higher education.

   These are your choices.

5. I’m no sure about Interac but I did work for ALTIA before. Contracts outside of Nagoya city were better than contracts in the city itself.

6. Altia Nagoya city contracts are worse than Interac contracts. Altia does have contracts outside of Nagoya like Toyota city which are better than Interac. Position location is really important when you work for Altia.

   In Nagoya city its 12 months at 200,000 before tax with no company health and pension. You only work 9 months of the year at a JHS but you will often work at the local ES for free and Altia will bully you in to it. I often had days where I would be teaching at every period, with no planning time whilst at school. So I was expected to work over 40 hours a week.
   This is on top of the required extras they want you to have – Japanese fluency, teaching experience. Usually though, people on Nagoya city contracts are on spouse visa or other unrestricted types and have been living in Japan for a while.

   ​

   I preferred working for Interac over Altia personally.

7. They’re all bad but I absolutely hated working for altia when I did. Did a year then found a better job.
   I have friends working in Nagoya for altia and apparently the BOES are pretty strict and demanding if that helps.

8. Nagoya is fairly urban and it’s basically a smaller, slightly less fun version of Tokyo. A lot of history in the area, shrines and temples and such. It has a reputation for not being a particularly fun city, tho.

   Interac North will get you well off the beaten tourist path, unless you’re placed in Sapporo city itself (unlikely). If you’re an outdoorsy type, you will have many opportunities to do things. Summers are far more tolerable than down South, the flip side is that winters are quite snowy and whatever you save on air conditioning, you’ll spend on heating.

   If you just want a couple years abroad, and maximizing your work-to-income ratio isn’t a huge priority, just pick what area sounds nicer. I do work for Interac and they’re honestly not that bad as a short term gig, although I don’t plan or want to be doing this job ten years from now of course.