Since the Japanese economy took a nosedive, the days of gaijin
flying into Japan and immediately being hired on a lucrative salary
for a few hours' work (typically teaching English) are well and
truly over. With the exception of the government-sponsored JET
programme
, employment opportunities for foreigners have shrunk, while the
number of well-qualified, Japanese-speaking gaijin in Japan has
increased. That said, finding employment is far from impossible,
especially if you have the right qualifications (a degree is
essential) and appropriate visa.
Australian, British, Canadian, French, New Zealand and South
Korean citizens aged between 18 and 30 can apply for a working
holiday visa
. All other foreigners working in Japan, must apply for a work
visa outside the country, for which the proper
sponsorship papers from your prospective employer will be
necessary. A few employers may be willing to hire you in Japan
before the proper papers are sorted, but you shouldn't rely on
this, and if you arrive in the country without a job make sure you
have plenty of funds to live on until you find one. Working visas
do not need to be obtained in your home country, so if you do get
offered a job in Japan, it's possible to sort out the paperwork in
South Korea, for example.
Apart from some specific Web sites
, the main places to look for job adverts are Monday's edition of
the Japan Times , the free weekly magazines Tokyo
Classified and Tokyo Notice Board and, in the Kansai
area, Kansai Time Out . You'll quickly see that the most
common job available to foreigners is teaching English . The
big employers are the national school chains, such as Berlitz,
Shane, GEOS, ECC and NOVA. Some have recruiting drives abroad (look
in your local media under "teaching opportunities" or "overseas
work"), so you can try and arrange a job before arriving. However,
some of the conversation schools are far from professional
operations (and even the biggies get lots of complaints), so before
signing any contract it's a good idea to attend a class and find
out what will be expected of you. If you have a professional
teaching qualification, plus experience, your chances of getting
one of the better jobs will be higher, as will they if you also
speak another language such as French or Italian. Susan Griffith's
book Vacation Work's Teaching English Abroad is recommended
as a good source of general information.
A much more limited job option for gaijin is rewriting or
editing translations of Japanese for technical documents, manuals,
magazines and so on, so that they make grammatical sense and read
well in English. For such jobs, it will be a great help if you have
at least a little Japanese. Other options include modelling, for
which it will be an asset to have a professional portfolio of
photographs, and bar work and hostessing, although the dangers of
this type of work have been exposed by the Lucie Blackman case.
Whatever work you're looking for - or if you're doing any sort of
business in Japan - a smart set of clothes will give you an
advantage, as will following other general rules of social
etiquette
.
The Web site www.skijapanguide.com contains information
for those looking for a job on the ski slopes. For those with
business in mind, the Kaisha Society, c/o OneWorld, 3-3-2 Higashi
Azabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106, a support and discussion organization
for foreigners working in Japan, is worth contacting. It has a
monthly newsletter, publishes an annual employment survey report
and hosts regular meetings and events in Tokyo and other major
cities.