I think many are like me getting ready for interviews, just out of curiosity what were some of the most curve ball questions you were asked during the interview.
Something I’ve seen in different places is that if you have a sensitive medical issue or dietary requirement etc, be prepared for them to possibly pick at it in an insensitive way to see how you react.
I would like to know if they ask for details on the tattoos.
Mine is easily hidden and not offensive or rude… just difficult to explain.
If ur able to tackle the Japanese portion.. Oh boy they give the most wildest question at the end if they see ur proficient
Dw about the Japanese portion tho it won’t hurt u
I don’t remember anything truly profound from my interview, but I will give this advice: I treated the interview start time as the instant I walked into the consulate, down by the security desk. I made sure to be extra charismatic and engaged with other interviewees who were waiting in the waiting area. Assume everyone is watching before you even sit down for the actual interview itself. Maybe that didn’t matter at all, but I passed it and was shortlisted. It doesn’t hurt to have that mentality.
“what do you do that your friends hate?” Yep, wasn’t expecting that one
English is in fact not my first language, so I was asked something along the lines of ” Why do you think you’d be a better teacher than an a native English speaker?”
I didn’t get any big curveball questions, but what I remember threw me off somewhat was instead of the “why japan/jet” question I was prepared for, I was asked “what aspect of Japanese culture are you most interested in experiencing”.
They asked me a lot of questions that were taken from my personal statement and specific to me. Kind of ‘devil’s advocate’ questions to throw me off. My advice would be to know your personal statement inside and out and to think if different things they could challenge you on from it.
Also have the mentality that if they ask anything awkward they aren’t attacking you as such, they are just seeing if you can answer calmly on the spot and think on your feet. If you know they could be like that it will help you stay calm. So long as you answer the question with something reasonable, I think it’s good to remember it’s not so important exactly what you say but more that you are able to not be too rattled.
They asked me my reasons for choosing my preferred placements and when I told them why they told me deadpan I was wrong hahahha. I had forgotten I put Tokyo as my top one and I was talking about the other 2. When I clarified it they smiled and were fine.
I interviewed from the UK and didn’t have the good cop bad cop thing I used to read about on here for the USA ones. By which I mean they weren’t bad or scary , they just challenged me on some of the things, but i found it helpful as then I was able to clarify and explain those points.
The curveball question I received was what I would do if faced with an older person being discriminatory to me. It was asked after I brought up that while I was born in Canada both my parents are Korean, but obviously this quesion could be asked to any ethnicity. After giving an answer, they pushed harder on the topic to try and get a reaction.
I did the Holocaust Educational Trust project which involved a day-trip to Auschwitz.
First Question of the Interview: “what do you think about the definition of the word Genocide?”
That kinda threw me off.
I breifly mentioned that I’d studied a bit of Mandarin Chinese and they then asked me a million and 5 times if I was *sure* I didn’t want to go China instead of Japan.
I did get asked the classic “mock lesson” question. The interviewers even started pretending to be children and started shouting 何？英語わかんない！at me
Edit:
Oh! Something that threw me for a loop was that I marked on my application that I spoke no Japanese. One of my interviewers (the JET alum) was aghast that I hadn’t started studying Japanese in the two months between me submitting my application and the interview?? I told him that I was a full time student and that between classes, my thesis, my extracurricular work, and my part time job I didn’t have time to start learning Japanese, but that if I was selected for the program I would start studying Japanese after graduation. He seemed to not believe me, but joke’s on him because I did and now I’m about to take the N1
What are my strengths and weaknesses? And (since I studied photography) What is one place that I would like to photograph in Japan.
“What would you say to a teacher that asks you why Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement?”
I was like… wtf…
I don’t remember any hard or curveball questions; but remember this is a only a short time to sell yourself. Never stop selling. Tie everything back to why you’d be perfect as an ALT and that they need to choose you over all those other people (don’t explicitly say that…).
Give concrete examples too. If you can tie in previous experiences over and over it’ll go well.
I was asked what I would do to continue studying and improving my Japanese while on JET and what I would do on my days off. These aren’t necessarily “curveball” questions but they are ones that definitely made me think
Great answers.
Late to the party, but still gonna contribute. Didn’t get thrown any serious curveballs, but one that threw me in a different direction was the former ALT interviewer said something like “most days, you’re most likely going to be deskwarming and underutilized. How would you make the best of your time while also remaining productive and useful to other JTEs and Japanese staff members?”
I think the way she worded the question had me slightly confused, but once I simplified it in my head, it wasn’t too bad. I answered along the lines something like “even if there are days if I don’t have classes to teach and nothing related to my job description to do, I’ll always make use of my time. First by continuing my Japanese language studies and by offering help wherever needed.”
That must have satisfied the question because I’m a 2nd year JET now lol. Got accepted my first try.
I recall in my ALT interview many years ago, they were asking me standard interview questions and then suddenly switched to Japanese and asked “Do you prefer mountains or the ocean?” The language and topic shift was so jarring that I could only stutter out a short response in Japanese – and then that was the only Japanese question they asked! I never got to show off my actual Japanese skills… they still offered me a job, though! 🙂
I was asked the basics. I can’t remember every question, but I know it started with “Why JET” and went to what I can bring to a Japanese classroom that is unique to me (one of the things I mentioned was southern culture). They then asked me how I would teach a lesson about southern culture. So I told them, then they asked me how I would adapt the same lesson for a more advanced high school class, so I told them that too. I remember that one feeling like an attempted gotcha but it didn’t trip me up! After that I think they asked me almost exclusively about my time studying abroad in Japan. What was the hardest part, how did I cope being away from family, favorite memory, and then they asked me if I ever cried (to which I said “duh!” in a much more professional way 😂). We did the Japanese portion and then said goodbye! Got shortlisted!
So the sudden “adapt your lesson plan to an advanced HS class instead of grade school”, “did you ever cry”, and “what did you do to prepare for this interview” were the ones that I hadn’t considered beforehand!
I openly wrote in my application about being gay and having depression. They asked me how do I cope with depression to which I answered that I talk to family and friends. Then they asked what would I do if I was sent to the countryside without access to that network of friends and family and if no one around accepted lgbtq people. Tbh I kind of cornered myself on that one lmao. I also have a vague memory of being asked about what would I do if a student made a really sexually inappropriate comment or something but I can’t remember if that was real or just a mock interview question I did.
21 comments
Following! (:
Something I’ve seen in different places is that if you have a sensitive medical issue or dietary requirement etc, be prepared for them to possibly pick at it in an insensitive way to see how you react.
I would like to know if they ask for details on the tattoos.
Mine is easily hidden and not offensive or rude… just difficult to explain.
If ur able to tackle the Japanese portion.. Oh boy they give the most wildest question at the end if they see ur proficient
Dw about the Japanese portion tho it won’t hurt u
I don’t remember anything truly profound from my interview, but I will give this advice: I treated the interview start time as the instant I walked into the consulate, down by the security desk. I made sure to be extra charismatic and engaged with other interviewees who were waiting in the waiting area. Assume everyone is watching before you even sit down for the actual interview itself. Maybe that didn’t matter at all, but I passed it and was shortlisted. It doesn’t hurt to have that mentality.
“what do you do that your friends hate?”
Yep, wasn’t expecting that one
English is in fact not my first language, so I was asked something along the lines of ” Why do you think you’d be a better teacher than an a native English speaker?”
I didn’t get any big curveball questions, but what I remember threw me off somewhat was instead of the “why japan/jet” question I was prepared for, I was asked “what aspect of Japanese culture are you most interested in experiencing”.
They asked me a lot of questions that were taken from my personal statement and specific to me. Kind of ‘devil’s advocate’ questions to throw me off. My advice would be to know your personal statement inside and out and to think if different things they could challenge you on from it.
Also have the mentality that if they ask anything awkward they aren’t attacking you as such, they are just seeing if you can answer calmly on the spot and think on your feet. If you know they could be like that it will help you stay calm. So long as you answer the question with something reasonable, I think it’s good to remember it’s not so important exactly what you say but more that you are able to not be too rattled.
They asked me my reasons for choosing my preferred placements and when I told them why they told me deadpan I was wrong hahahha. I had forgotten I put Tokyo as my top one and I was talking about the other 2. When I clarified it they smiled and were fine.
I interviewed from the UK and didn’t have the good cop bad cop thing I used to read about on here for the USA ones. By which I mean they weren’t bad or scary , they just challenged me on some of the things, but i found it helpful as then I was able to clarify and explain those points.
The curveball question I received was what I would do if faced with an older person being discriminatory to me. It was asked after I brought up that while I was born in Canada both my parents are Korean, but obviously this quesion could be asked to any ethnicity. After giving an answer, they pushed harder on the topic to try and get a reaction.
I did the Holocaust Educational Trust project which involved a day-trip to Auschwitz.
First Question of the Interview: “what do you think about the definition of the word Genocide?”
That kinda threw me off.
I breifly mentioned that I’d studied a bit of Mandarin Chinese and they then asked me a million and 5 times if I was *sure* I didn’t want to go China instead of Japan.
I did get asked the classic “mock lesson” question. The interviewers even started pretending to be children and started shouting 何？英語わかんない！at me
Edit:
Oh! Something that threw me for a loop was that I marked on my application that I spoke no Japanese. One of my interviewers (the JET alum) was aghast that I hadn’t started studying Japanese in the two months between me submitting my application and the interview?? I told him that I was a full time student and that between classes, my thesis, my extracurricular work, and my part time job I didn’t have time to start learning Japanese, but that if I was selected for the program I would start studying Japanese after graduation. He seemed to not believe me, but joke’s on him because I did and now I’m about to take the N1
What are my strengths and weaknesses? And (since I studied photography) What is one place that I would like to photograph in Japan.
“What would you say to a teacher that asks you why Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement?”
I was like… wtf…
I don’t remember any hard or curveball questions; but remember this is a only a short time to sell yourself. Never stop selling. Tie everything back to why you’d be perfect as an ALT and that they need to choose you over all those other people (don’t explicitly say that…).
Give concrete examples too. If you can tie in previous experiences over and over it’ll go well.
I was asked what I would do to continue studying and improving my Japanese while on JET and what I would do on my days off. These aren’t necessarily “curveball” questions but they are ones that definitely made me think
Great answers.
Late to the party, but still gonna contribute. Didn’t get thrown any serious curveballs, but one that threw me in a different direction was the former ALT interviewer said something like “most days, you’re most likely going to be deskwarming and underutilized. How would you make the best of your time while also remaining productive and useful to other JTEs and Japanese staff members?”
I think the way she worded the question had me slightly confused, but once I simplified it in my head, it wasn’t too bad. I answered along the lines something like “even if there are days if I don’t have classes to teach and nothing related to my job description to do, I’ll always make use of my time. First by continuing my Japanese language studies and by offering help wherever needed.”
That must have satisfied the question because I’m a 2nd year JET now lol. Got accepted my first try.
I recall in my ALT interview many years ago, they were asking me standard interview questions and then suddenly switched to Japanese and asked “Do you prefer mountains or the ocean?” The language and topic shift was so jarring that I could only stutter out a short response in Japanese – and then that was the only Japanese question they asked! I never got to show off my actual Japanese skills… they still offered me a job, though! 🙂
I was asked the basics. I can’t remember every question, but I know it started with “Why JET” and went to what I can bring to a Japanese classroom that is unique to me (one of the things I mentioned was southern culture). They then asked me how I would teach a lesson about southern culture. So I told them, then they asked me how I would adapt the same lesson for a more advanced high school class, so I told them that too. I remember that one feeling like an attempted gotcha but it didn’t trip me up! After that I think they asked me almost exclusively about my time studying abroad in Japan. What was the hardest part, how did I cope being away from family, favorite memory, and then they asked me if I ever cried (to which I said “duh!” in a much more professional way 😂). We did the Japanese portion and then said goodbye! Got shortlisted!
So the sudden “adapt your lesson plan to an advanced HS class instead of grade school”, “did you ever cry”, and “what did you do to prepare for this interview” were the ones that I hadn’t considered beforehand!
I openly wrote in my application about being gay and having depression. They asked me how do I cope with depression to which I answered that I talk to family and friends. Then they asked what would I do if I was sent to the countryside without access to that network of friends and family and if no one around accepted lgbtq people. Tbh I kind of cornered myself on that one lmao.
I also have a vague memory of being asked about what would I do if a student made a really sexually inappropriate comment or something but I can’t remember if that was real or just a mock interview question I did.