A question for the people here who changed careers: How did you go about your visa?
I read of several people changing from English teaching to IT related jobs. Often read it’s the same visa because Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services is an umbrella visa. So as long as you find a company willing to employ you for one of those you can switch jobs without needing to apply for a new visa.
I found a company willing to employ me for web development which I studied on the side for the last few years. However, immigration told me I can’t get this kind of job because I didn’t study Computer Science in college. I can only work a job related to my college major (unfortunately East Asian languages, history & culture) or related to my mother tongue (so translation, sales, costumer service between my mother tongue and Japanese, maybe also other languages from my college degree). Only other way besides an IT related college major would be if I had 10 years work experience in web development, but obviously I don’t…
So how were you able to switch careers?
Do you all have PR or Spouse visas?
Did you have IT related degrees, but fell into teaching and had to fresh up your skills or reach a certain Japanese level before finding a non-teaching job here? (I often read Japanese is more a plus than a must for IT related jobs, though…)
How did you do it?
5 comments
To apply to switch my visa category, I needed a formal job offer (内定) from a company in the new category. I interviewed not really knowing what would be required and was nervous that the company would get cold feet when they heard the word “visa,” but it worked out. Good luck to you!
Immigration gives often times conflicting info. [Another source](https://www.tokyodev.com/2020/03/02/japanese-engineering-visa-options/#existing-esi) says you’d be fine changing jobs under your current visa. Get a formal 内定書 from the company, and apply for a 就労資格証明書 from immigration, if you want to get a formal approval for your new job. Obtaining a 就労資格証明書 is voluntary, but it will ensure your next visa renewal will be a smooth process.
> Often read it’s the same visa because Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services is an umbrella visa.
You know why it’s called an umbrella visa? It’s because companies can come up with any bullshit reason to show that your job aligns with the visa you have.
The government doesn’t actually follow you or secretly send people to your company to verify your actual job you know.
Explain the situation to your company and ask them to write a letter explaining how your language skills would benefit them, such as translating documents or communicating with clients. This is what most companies do when they hire foreigners with this visa for unrelated positions.
Does the web development position require use of Japanese and English? If you could push that aspect of the role, and undersell the unrelated parts, and get the company to agree (lol) that could be enough? Not really sure, but something you could try…
I changed from instructor to humanities, but I supplied them with a master’s degree in IT I got while living in Japan.
Do you have any tech related certifications you could provide? You might need to include a translation.