Gaijinpot.com Blog on the subject

I've found another blog on Gaijinpot.com (a decent resource though it tends to have underpaid positions listed) that deals with the issue of finding work in Japan as a foreigner. Most people are expressing frustration with teaching, but some comments on Japanese fluency and defining your career life seem valuble. For instance,

Japan, like any country values valuable people. 98% of white English speakers however are English teachers - not that they're not valuable, they just defaulted to Eigo Teacher because they couldn't (or wouldn't) define themselves elsewhere.

from Bongo (click here to see blog)

This is a great quote! I did not appreciate the tone of everything Bongo said but there is something to the message itself. As I contact recruiters, they express the difficulty posed by moving to Japan to find work. Maintaining a great work history in the field you want to be in and achieving fluency in Japanese to the level that you can work here is extremely difficult. There is a general underlying assumtion here that people tend to have to prioritize one or the other in order to achieve the goal. If you come over with your company, it means they consider you valuable and encourage you to become fluent, not that they care. If you try to start in Japan as an expat, companies do not give you the benefit of a proven internal work history so you better know the language and have some proven work skills!

So that is the assumtion and the Catch-22, isn't it. If you come to work on the language, do not spend more than a year. If you do not perfect Japanese, your work history becomes tarnished after a year. But, is it really true that expats in Japan cannot continue to learn the language and a new job? Most of us have to learn to teach English from the get go and study as well. Why is it that companies do not see this as a promise of continued work ethic?

My answer comes from some of the interviews I've done to find a replacement. There are a lot of slackers in Japan, doing as little as possible to keep ALT positions. Foreigners have shown up to the interviews in jeans and t-shirts, they slouched and yawned, and even made smart-ass comments to me. They openly want a job that either allows them to party or waltz in at their own convenience! Why the hell would some of these people get hired in their home country? This is a general problem that needs to be fixed before teaching English for even a DAY makes you unemployable.