This time, I am going to explain how those of you who are foreigners can get official working visa and work in Japan.
There are so many people who desire to get a job in Japan. They have various reasons to get a job in Japan like getting out of their poverty and changing their circumstances, being safe country in the world, wanting to experience Japanese life and feel its culture to pursue the enjoyment of Japanese Anime.
These vague wishes cannot put yourself into specific actions to come true the realistic to live in Japan. If you really want to win a job and living in Japan, the points you need to
be conscious of are
- where you are (your present circumstances)
- how far it is to your goal
- How you can overcome obstacles on the way to your goal
These things are often talked in self-improvement book to embody a general process of realizing your goal in order to make you imagine how you can win your wishes.
To get a job in Japan is the same thing as self-improvement. It is much more important to become very realistic and plug the gap between your circumstances and realistic goal that you make living in Japan.
For example, obstacles can be the hiring requirements and conditions of a company which you desire to work for or visa conditions that Immigration Bureau imposes on you.
It cannot be helped that you have to break through the obstacles and become a person suitable for the personality that a number of requibments and conditions require you to become.
If you have already graduated from college or university and valuable qualification and skills which may be of great advantage to contribute to benefits of a company which you want to work for or
If you have cultivated your skill and experience over several years in a certain market in your country which is way ahead of that in Japan and those experiences can hit the ground running in the most competitive market in Japan with confidence in making excellent results which overwhelm others, you are in great demand among Japanese companies which are in need of your skills and experiences.
Needless to say, if you already have a good achievement in a specific field in your country, it will be a great advantage to work in Japan like the obstacles you have to break will turn out to be mere procedure on a document and wide rage of working options and opportunities.
If you lack attractive skill or experiences which you can sell to a company and don’t hold bachelor, various kinds of obstacles will disturb you from getting official working visa and living in Japan. Means of getting a job is pretty much limited compared to the person corresponding to the above.
Those of you who lack have attractive job history or educational background have a chance to use working holiday visa which is open work permit given to all the nations of a country which has signed working holiday agreements with Japan.
However, your occupational options are realistically quite limited and you won’t necessarily get a job you want to do because it is obvious that the more highly competitive the industry you want to work in becomes, the more qualified person in terms of advantageous job history or high educational background will be hired even if a job you found is only a part time job.
So the less your options are, the more influenced you are by Japanese employment situation.
It seems that such opinions as one of the primary condition to get working visa in Japan is holding college garudation credit spread around the internet. But this is not absolute condition to apply for working visa in Japan. There are some people who work for Japanese company with only sufficient experience in specific industry without graduating from university.
However, if you go to college or university, your occupational options are definitely extended. You will have a chance to candidate as student abroad to take an opportunity of exchange programs. During studying abroad in Japan. you can visit a Japanese company to sell yourself by taking advantage of your position as Japanese college student in Japan if you decide your first career after graduation will start from a Japanese company.
Or you can have a choice to join in JET program (Japan Exchange and Teaching Program) managed by Japanese government, which you can work for city office as Coordinator for International Relations or public school as Assistant Language Teacher temporarily and you can make the most of this experience to the next career in Japan.
You also have another way to work in worldwide enterprise in your country by targeting its Japanese branch office after graduation.
So if you are still a teenager going to a high school and want to work in Japan in the future, it is not good idea to give up going to college or university because this decision will end up narrowing your potential and possibilities to work in Japan.
According to the visa issuance statistics in 2016 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the number of issuance is 5,381,433. Working visa issuance is only 86,311 out of 5,381,433, which means working visa issuance is only 2% of the total visa issuance.
The ministry of foreign affairs of Japan doesn’t disclose statistics of working visa applications so the fact of the number of issuance out of the total number of working visa applications is unclear and issuance rate is unknown. Therefore, we can’t presume whether the Japanese government deliberately restrict working visa issuance or not.
However, it is true that the Immigration Bureau has quite strict criteria for working visa issuance based on Immigration Act even if you have already received a tentative job offer from a company, there is a possibility that your visa applications may be disapproved.
Essentially, all the conditions and requirements of working visa are made to choose a skillful person who will be able to contribute to Japanese economy. In other words. those who have possibility to simply deprive Japanese employment opportunity and not to make a profit for Japanese economic development will be going to face the fate of a number of disapproval in succession in spite of a series of applications for working visa.
Your circumstances for working in Japan will totally differ whether or not you are a needed person for Japan.
Contents
You need to know what kind of person does the Japanese government think is suitable for working in Japan
You have to know what kind of thoughts the Japanese government bases to make conditions and requirements of visa status.
Because the immigration bureau of Japan measures pass or fail of screening applicants based on guideline or criteria of what kind of person is suitable for working in Japan.
In most cases, you can find conditions and requirements for the visa status you will apply for from Immigration Act or Ordinance but those don’t tell us immigration bureau’s envisioning what person is worth passing the screening. So you cannot help presuming what you are required essentially to get the visa status from the conditions.
Externally, you should pass the screening if you satisfy the conditions of the visa status you are trying to get. But realistically, there are some cases where applicants were disapproved even though they satisfied the listed conditions of visa status.
This is because it is insufficient to simply satisfy the conditions without knowing real intention of the government underneath the conditions. For example, in case where you are on the process of getting a certain visa and required to submit a document which discloses your achievement of your previous job, if it is unclear how your previous experience is related to visa category you’re trying to get and will contribute to Japanese economy, your application may be turned away.
Basically Japan accepts refugees at the request of the United Nation in the form of humanitarian support to maintain dignity and show its presentability as a major economic power in the world but for all practical purposes, the Japanese government places importance on returning direct benefit to Japanese economy from those to whom it grants visa.
The same is true of other counties, the most concern that the Japanese government conservatively pays serious attention to about accepting foreigners is
- A financial burden on social security cost in the result of accepting foreigners
- Securing sufficient employment opportunity for Japanese nations
- Terrorism which strikes terror into a nations’s heart
The third concern is out of question for you unless you have such a personality scheming destruction of Japanese state.
As long as we look at Japanese circumstances showing the first one and second one, even if you come to work in Japan for the purpose of enjoying higher living standard , your ability level needs to reach the one that the Japanese government generally requires to foreigners to whom it grants visa status. There is no working visa demanding manual labors except for visa corresponding to specials activities which is generally said open work permit.
You need to presume what kind of person the Japanese government thinks is worth contributing to Japanese society and economy and essencially required from the visa conditions.
Here is conditions of “instructor” known as one of working visa which I bring for sample.
- The applicant shall have graduated from university or acquired an education equivalent thereto.
- The applicant shall have completed a specialized course of study at a vocational school in Japan (limited to cases coming under the requirements designated in a public notice by the Minister of Justice relating to such completion) majoring in a subject pertaining to the necessary skills and knowledge for the subject which he/she intends to teach.
- he applicant shall hold a license to teach the subject that he/she intends to teach.
- When the applicant intends to teach a foreign language, he/she shall have acquired an education in said language for at least 12 years. When the applicant is to teach any other subject, he/she shall have at least 5 years’ teaching experience in that subject.
- The applicant shall receive no less remuneration than would a Japanese national for comparable work.
(Source: Japanese Law Translation)
This is visa status which allows you to carry out educational activity in Japan for all the instructor who will teach in Japanese elementary school, junior high school, high school, school for the blind, school for the deaf, special training school.
What can you guess about required personality of this visa status “instructor” when you read this conditions?
This is only my tentative theory but if I were in your side and would aim at English teacher in Japan, I would presume the following things from the above conditions.
- Raising student’s English communication to be used worldwide under any situations by making the best of mastership.
- My position sometimes takes charge of instructing Japanese English instructors and assist them to bridge a defect in order to improve the quality of English education.
- Recognizing problems of Japanese English education system and making quality curriculum to make students learn English efficiently and effectively
- Instructing English in consideration of students’ future career after graduation from school
Considering the above, you can work out effective measures and draw a scenario until you become instructor in Japan at the time you come up with a though that you want to work in Japan.
For example, you can take the opportunity of Japan Exchange and Teaching Program and become temporary teacher in Japanese public school for a couple of years and then get the position as a teacher in Japanese international school in your country to build achievement which the immigration bureau prefers.
You gain footholds by practicing above lists brick by brick to become the personality suitable for working in Japan and dig deeply into what you learn in Japan to train your mastership.
If your attitude towards English education in Japan is very positive with persuasive achievement from your experience, Immigration Bureau
feels emotionally sympathy about your attitude and turns a blind eye on what you don’t satisfy from the listed conditions of visa status. And Japanese school will smoothly arrange your position to work.
Likewise, all the visa you will apply for has such conditions to make sure whether you’re suitable for working in Japan prior to screening visa applications.
The following sentences are picked up out from a guideline of criteria for screening applicants of permission of permanent residence
- The applicant shall have been involved with the management of the Japanese listed company or equivalent scale company for more than 3 years and the achievements by the activity during this term shall be recognized as contribution to Japanese economic development.
- The applicant who have been involved with the management of a Japanese company shall have continued to invest more than 100,000,000 yen in total during this term.
- The applicant shall have won award in the result of nationwide selective competition and contributed to Japanese industrial development.
- The applicant shall have been engaged in a Japanese listed company or equivalent scale company as a manager for about 5 years and the achievements by the activity during this term shall be recognized as contribution to Japanese economic development.
- The applicant shall have made enormous contributions to agricultural forestry industries and fishers ,commerce and other industries by the activity as cutting-edge technology engineer
- The applicant shall have been involved with the project on the development of “growth sectors” or regenerative medicine operated by the competent authority for 5 years and achievements by the activity during this term shall be recognized as contribution to Japanese economic development.
(Source: the Immigration Bureau of Japan)
This guideline is originally private information having not been open to the public so far, which is written about the criteria of screening for permission of permanent residence.
This required conditions are a little bit different in character from the general working visa conditions but I don’t think screening standard is too far from the other visa screening standards in terms of granting visa on one level or another so this criteria deserves to refer to when you see other working visa conditions.
You may notice that the immigrant bureau repeatedly mentions how you can contribute to Japanese economy after you are granted visa. You should consider what you are required essentially to be granted visa by checking with this screening criteria.
If you take wrong direction of effort to get visa, you may experience so many hardship. Please not just be hard to gain your skills or experiences to only satisfy the visa conditions but also make effort to understand the required personality of foreigners by the Japanese government.
If you take wrong direction of effort to get visa, you may experience so many hardship. Please not just be hard to gain your skills or experiences to only satisfy the visa conditions but also make effort to understand the required personality of foreigners by the Japanese government.
You may probably think “I look for a chance to be sponsored by a company I want to work for. So I prioritize satisfying the companies hiring requirements. If I got the job, a company would look after my visa application procedure. ”
However, have you ever though why a Japanese company needs to hire you for a certain position instead of hiring Japanese?
After all, what a company requires you is almost the same as what immigration bureau requires you because a company doesn’t have a reason to hire you instead of Japanese if you have the same ability or less than other Japanese workers.
In that sense, satisfying the visa conditions also means proving your ability reaches the standard a company requires to foreigners.
What kinds of visa status do I have to aim at to get to work in Japan?
It depends on what types job you want to do. On the major premise, you have to decide what types job you want to do in Japan beforehand. After that, you carefully plan the strategy to satisfy the conditions of visa related to the job you want to do.
There are all 17 types of visa status in total classified as working visa in Japan
- Diplomat
- Official
- Professor
- Artist
- Religious Activities
- Journalist
- Business Manager
- Legal/ Accounting Services
- Medical Services
- Researcher
- Instructor
- Engineer/ Specialist in Humanities/ International Services
- Skilled Labor
- Intra-Company Transferee
- Entertainer
- Technical Intern Training
- Highly Skilled Professional
Usually, you apply for visa status as employee of a Japanese company, the company will look after your visa application procedure. However, you should research what kind of visa status the company would apply for for you. Because there are some cases in the past where an applicants procedure was in denial although he had already got job offers from Japanese company.
It is important to know what kind of visa status the job you’re going to do in Japan belongs to and make sure whether you clear the conditions of visa status by yourself
| Types of status | Activities | Number of issuance (2016) | The percentage of individual visa status (to total visa issuance) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diplomat | A member of diplomatic mission sent by foreign government and its family | 5,305 | 0.1% |
| Official | Officers of international organizations or foreign government | 17,677 | 0.32% |
| Professor | Researcher or instructor of university or equivalent educational institution, professor of university or college. | 3,028 | 0.06% |
| Artist | Musicians, artists, composer, photographer, writer, songwriter or professionals engaged in other artistic activities which produce income. | 383 | 0.007% |
| Religious Activities | Missionaries and priests sent by foreign religious body | 1,008 | 0.019% |
| Journalist | Journalists and cameraman belonging to foreign press, free journalists | 119 | 0.002% |
| Business Manager | A managing director or a manager of Japanese subsidiary, or Japanese branch office or store, invited manager of a Japanese company. Those who start up business in Japan |
2,018 | 0.039% |
| Legal/ Accounting Services | Attorneys, certified accountants or other legal specialists. | 4 | 0.00007% |
| Medical Services | Doctors, dentists or nurses those who are engaged in the field of medical services. | 35 | 0.001% |
| Researcher | Researchers belonging to public or private organizations. | 353 | 0.007% |
| Instructor | Teacher of
,which are official school regulated by School Education Law |
3,062 | 0.057% |
| Engineer/ Specialist in Humanities/ International Services |
Those who are engaged in the field of
|
21,353 | 0.4% |
| Skilled Labor | Those who are engaged in skilled profession such as
|
6,473 | 0.12% |
| Intra-Company Transferee | Those who will work at their subsidiary, branch, or representative office in Japan. | 7,954 | 0.148% |
| Entertainer |
|
40,276 | 0.748% |
| Technical Intern Training | Technical intern trainee. | 108,603 | 2.02% |
| Highly Skilled Professional | Person who is qualified as Highly Skilled Professional (special treatment) | 397 | 0.007% |
This is major visa status that people are qaulified to work in Japan.
The numbers listed on the right 2 columns are about how many people have been issued with the individual visa status and its percentatge to total visa issuance in 2016.
By the way, total number of issuance of all the visa status in 2016 was 5,381,433. 90% of the total visa issuance was “Temporary visitor”, (which is for a temporary stay for sightseeing, business, paying a cadual visit to relatives within 90 days without doing activities producing revenue). So number of issuance is pushed up mostly by the people who come to Japan for sightseeing.
Red coloured colmns indicates the top 3 issuance visa in the category of working visa. Japan foreign affairs doesn’t disclose the number of applicants so the percentage of issuance to applicants is unclear, therefore, we couldn’t know the trend of competitiveness between applicants and issuance correctly.
Simply Judging from the number of issuance, the visa status colored in red has relatively high probability to pass the screening of visa application. In contrast to this, Only 4 people was granted visa status “Legal/ Accounting Services” .
I am not quite sure how many people in total have applied for the visa status “Legal/ Accounting Services” but as long as you see the number of issuance, thinking realistically about the probability of chances you can get from visa issuance is one criteria to find jobs in Japan if your choices are quite limited. So if the visa status you can be granted from your qualification is limited, you can consider the job type which corresponds to visa status having been issued a lot in the past by immigration bureau.
| Ranking | Types of status | Number of issuance |
|---|---|---|
| Technical Intern Training | 108,603 | |
| Entertainer | 40,276 | |
| Engineer/ Specialist in Humanities/ International Services | 21,353 | |
| Official | 17,677 | |
| Intra-Company Transferee | 7,954 |
This table shows the ranking of issuance in decreasing order. Visa statuses ranked lower than 3rd are quite realistic status to build your career in Japan.
The first one “Technical Intern Training” has originally established for the purpose of helping developing countries to develop their national power by passing down the technology and knowledge which Japan has been cultivated so far to fulfill a role as advanced country.
However, the reality is unimaginably tough. There is a truth that companies accepting foreign interns force them harsh work and cruel treatment with illegal low salary by taking advantage of the position of internship. This has become social problem and controversial issue for a long time.
It is very important to consider the probability of issuance of visa in deciding what types of job you can do in Japan. But please remember, the visa status with a lot of issuance does not necessarily lead you to good working opportunity as you can understand from the above.
In my opinion, basically, you shouldn’t target visa status which has been issued a lot in the past to simply raise probability to be granted visa status but you should prioritize realizing what you want to do in Japan and satisfy the conditions of visa status which allows you to do the job in Japan .
Because you end up taking a detour sooner or later until you realize your ideal career and living you desire to make. Mostly occupations and a sphere of activities are restricted by individual visa statuses. In principle, you will not be able to work as teacher with visa status “Legal/ Accounting Services”.
You end up making enormous effort to change visa status to get a new job which is not included with the scope of activities indicated by the visa status you have or even to get a new job which is included in the same classification of visa status to pass through employment examination even if you enter Japan by easily getting a visa status which simply raise probability to grant you working permission.
This is really conventional solution that every websites tell you but the most straightforward is that you should do thorough preparation in your country in advance and focus your attention on increasing your choices to work in Japan if you attach weight to what you want to do in Japan.
There is a case where something will luckily turn up even if you come to Japan recklessly without any preparation. However, I want you to remember there are a lot of foreigners who have no way out to find a solution to get a job or pass the screening of visa and go back to their country in the end.
Technical Intern Training
Aim of establishment
Technical Intern training program aims to supporting foster ability of people from developing countries to provide skills or technologies that Japan has been cultivated so far. Japan has an obligation to play a roll of an advanced country and harmonize international society. (source of reference : Ministry of Health、Labour and Welfare
)
Conditions
Technical Intern training program accepts only foreigners from the countries which have joined this supportive program provided by Japanese government and are indicated as “developed country” by world bank.
Training period is for 5 years at longest. The present affiliated countries are Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Philippine, Laos and Mongol.
Trainees are to master skills of a certain industry through on the job training and after going back to their country with the completion of the training program in Japan, they are required to contribute to the development of their countries by making the most of their skills they learnt in Japan.
Applicants should apply for sending organization which provide screening in accordance with a request of personnel from supervising organization.
Current situation
There is a truth that companies accepting foreign interns force them harsh work and cruel treatment with illegal low salary by taking advantage of the position of internship. This has become social problem and controversial issue for a long time.
The United States criticized with annual report on human trafficking that technical intern program hosted by Japan has become hotbed of forced labor.
Entertainer
This visa is for activities involved with sport business or show business.
Its target persons are actor, actress, martial artist, dancer, musicians, TV personality, professional athletes. This visa is basically acquired when holding a concert, appearing Japanese TV show, performing on the stage.
The foreign affairs of Japan doesn’t make public detailed breakdown of occupations of foreigners for individual visa status, I can’t speak strongly the clear tendency about why Entertainer visa has second largest number of issuance. But I think there are two reasons.
The first reason of pushing up its number of issuance to the second largest is because if actor or actress, athletes and other personality taking active part in show business come to Japan for the purpose of one of promotion activities to make them better known in public, even if they come to Japan for temporary visit that doesn’t exceed the term of stay regulated in tourist visa without any reward, they all need to apply for Entertainer visa without exception. So actually the number of people working in Japan with Entertainer visa is not that much.
Second reason is that this Entertainer visa regulates ” playing drama, music, sport to audience at a specific facility”. This status contains the activities of singers and dancers performing at Bar, Cabaret and Club.
Foreigners who come to Japan for working in nightlife business apply for this status through recruitment agency and work as a hostess to provide companionship service to the customers.
They are ostensibly dancer or singer attached to the bar, cabaret or club but the truth is that they wait on customers to drink with. This activity is strictly prohibited by visa status. However, companies dispatching these foreigners (mainly women) to make them work illegally in Japan are rampant and take advantage of loop-hole of this status
Recently, so many illegal work and illegal overstayers have been exposed by the authority so that basic ordinance of “Entertainer visa” was reformed in 2016 and its screening criteria for Entertainer visa wa made stricter.
Engineer/ Specialist in Humanities/ International Services
This visa is for Engineer, person engaged in trading business, marketing and interpretation and translation. There are also some similar status like business manager or Skilled Labor but these scope of activities are different from this status and its requirements and conditions are also different. This visa is most popular to apply for among Japanese companies sponsoring foreigners who want to work for. But In some cases where some Japanese companies have little understanding of visa issuance requirements, you will be in the face of a problem that your application is in denial although you plan to be hired. So you should check the conditions and if you are qualified yourself.
This status called “Engineer/ Specialist in Humanities/ International Services” was originally divided into “Engineer” and “Specialist in Humanities/ International Services” to classify roughly the field of industry applicants can work by which department of university they have graduated from.
For example, if you have studied liberal arts/social sciences/humanities in college or university, you needed to apply for Specialist in Humanities/ International Services and if you studied science/ tech science, you needed to apply for Engineer because the immigration bureau doesn’t issue status to the person who apply for status type which is totally irrelevant to the department he/she graduated from.
Basically this criteria is still alive even after the integration of these two visa statuses. So if you grasp exactly this criteria, you need to choose a department of university or college which is likely to be related to the job in the future after graduation. So you need to plan a strategy in college beforehand what kind of career you would like to build in Japan and you may need to change the department you belong to if your department has nothing to do with what you want to work after graduation in Japan.
Personally, I feel applicants relatively tend to become English teacher in private English conversation school. This is a year-round job and its recruitment ads are quite a lot with relatively easy hiring requirements for people from English speaking countries.
Required conditions of this status are not very difficult compared with status type classified in “Instructor” that allows you to work for public Japanese school. Comparably this status is realistically easy to get for people who smily work in Japan.
But don’t forget that you need to have degree of bachelor which is relevant to working as language teacher in Japan. Recently the person who graduate from vocational school is also subject to issuance of this visa status but its condition is more limited and stricter than the conditions imposed to the person having a degree of bachelor. Concretely you have to prove why your knowledge you learned in vocational school is relevant to the job you’re going to do. So you already have to have your sights set on applying for visa before entering the school and record the process of what you learn and what kind of qualification you got in school.
Officials
The definition of “official” on immigration act says
Activities on the part of those who engage in the official business of foreign governments or international organizations recognized by the Japanese Government; and activities on the part of their family members belonging to the same household (except for the activities listed in the right-hand column under this table’s “Diplomat” column).
Except for formal temporary visit by high government official, only the person who can work with this status is diplomatic agent and his/her family. If you want to be granted this status type, whether you are hired as diplomat agent in the section specialized in diplomatic dealings with Japan by your country’s government or you are hired as UN employee is the primary condition you have to satisfy prior to getting visa.
Applicable scope is
- A member of diplomatic mission of the foreign government accepted by the Japanese government (Ambassador, diplomatic minister, counselor, secretarial assistant)
- Head of state, cabinet minister, A chairman of the assembly, Secretary‐General of the UN, a chief of Specialized Agencies
- Family member who belongs to the same household of the person corresponding to the above.
Intra-Company Transferee
This visa is for an employee working for private or public organization or company based in a foreign country which has headquarters ,subsidiary, or other business offices in Japan, who is transferred to those Japanese offices for a fixed term to do activities which corresponds to visa status “Engineer/ Specialist in Humanities/ International Services”
The person who can be issued with this status type is the one who are mainly sent to a Japanese affiliated company, a Japanese subsidiary or headquarter or its branch of Japanese company from a company located in your country.
This visa regulates 4 types of period (5years, 3years, 1year or 3months). Applicants need to satisfy the following requirements to apply for this status type
- The applicant must have engaged in business which corresponds to visa status “Engineer/ Specialist in Humanities/ International Services” at headquarters, subsidiary, or other business offices located in applicant’s country for more than a year continuously before being transferred to Japanese office.
- The applicant must be involved with activities which corresponds to visa status “Engineer/ Specialist in Humanities/ International Services” at Japanese office
- The applicant must receive no less reward than a Japanese national would receive for comparable work
If you have have an opportunity to work for company that gives you a chance to work for Japanese branch office, this is must better status type you can get than any other types of statuses.
The following points overwhelmingly lower the bar to overcome conditions.
- Required period you must experience in a specific field linked to “Engineer/ Specialist in Humanities/ International Services” is one year at least
- You don’t have to have bachelor degree.
Most of visa are required to have 5 to 10 years career in the field in addition to holding bachelor degree. You do understand how easy the conditions are to pass the screening.
Visa status “official” also doesn’t regulate conditions of educational background. However I believe there is probably no posts to be given to the person who doesn’t have bachelor degree at least in the department of a country which is in charge of diplomacy.
The person who assumes the post to be sent to the embassy in Japan as diplomatic agent is all the more required to have graduated from college or university with a specific degree.
I believe there is no doubt that the range of your choices would be enlarged if you have graduated from university or college. But you have a chance to revive your career from the even post of internship by working for the company that places importance on not educational background but labor’s capability.
This visa status has disadvantages that you can’t choose the length of term you want to stay in Japan and you have to work for the company for a couple of years until you are given the post to be sent to Japan but I think this is realistically the best way for those who don’t have bachelor or good career in a field to get ticket of working in Japan.
Is it possible to step up from part-time worker to full time worker on working holiday?
Working holiday visa is categorized as visa status “special activity” which treats unorganized activities that cannot be categorized in other official status type like amature athlete, a person who join internship of Japanese company, students who join in summer job, researcher of Academic institutions, a patient who receive Japanese medical treatment.
The Japanese government accept incidental work permit to earn funds which is in need for the living expenses and travel during your stay.
The topic that interests you the most is about how you can start building your career from working holiday visa. First of all, if you want to continue to stay in Japan to work after expiry of working holiday term, you should know who you are going to fight with to scramble for a chair of employment.
| Foreign students of university and college |
Because of deep-rooted custom of lifelong employment system in labor market of Japan, Japanese companies still support simultaneous recruiting of new graduates who don’t even have working experience in a specific field. Instead of that, a mid-career job change is quite difficult. Graduates from university or college are granted privilege to select companies to be hired as priority in Japan. The company affiliated strogly with a university, it may prioritize remainng the post for new graduates of a university to hire. |
|---|---|
| Mid-career recruit |
No matter how difficult it is for a mid-career recruit to be hired by a Japanese company, a person who has already rich experience in a certain industry in Japan could be a great advantage for a Japanese company to employ. There is a great difference in the starting line between a mid-career recruit and a working holiday maker. |
| Technical intern |
Technical intern comes to Japan for the purpose of mainly acquiring manufacturing technology for a couple of years with small salary. Most of people coming to Japan for internship will go back to their countries to spread the technology they learned around. However, some of interns receiving a high evaluation from a company will be hired naturally as employee. Their skills are mostly expert level at the time they get promoted from intern to official employee. |
| The person who join in the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program |
Participants of this program is the ones who have won through severe selective examination over several months in very high competitiveness. In that sense, they are really smart at the time of being selected. They can build career smoothly after the JET program. Having worked in Japan before is, needless to say, great advantage for those who want to build career in Japan. |
If you were a recruiting personnel of a Japanese company, would you like to hire a working holiday maker as a full time employee, who is working as a part time worker without having sufficient career in the field which makes you doubt whether or not the immigrant bureau issues working visa for him/her.
To begin with, no companies will be interested in employing a working holiday maker who is pretty unclear whether or not to be granted working visa after the expiry of working holiday term.
What a company sees prior to hiring you as full-time employee is
- Whether you have enough qualification to satisfy the requirements of visa status type categorized in working visa.
- Whether you have fluent Japanese speaking skill.
- Whether your previous career in your country is relevant to the job
- Whether you have sufficient skills or confident to handle high responsible position
This is a minimum requirements that a company places importance on when interviewing.These requirements of course differ depending on the company you want to work for.
Anyways, if one of the purpose that you come to Japan for working holiday is to get a full-time job within validated period, you should already have an job experience in a specific industry for at least 3 years after graduation from university or college, which you have an confidence to make the most of to a Japanese company.
So even if you select the route of working holiday to find a job in Japan, you will have many difficulties ahead to grab a chair of full time employment and may not find any although you look for a company that sponsors you all the year around during the term unless you prepare for it in your country without an exaggeration.
Many people will picture the scene of a success story that a part-time worker is pulled up to its treatment as a official full time worker in a company. Of course, there are some of those who came true this way but they’ve already had some advantages attractive enough to appeal to the company to be positioned in responsible post.
For example, a person who could speak Japanese as fluently as Japanese speaks, a person who have good knowledge and experience in a certain field which a company pay strongly attention to in aiming for an active advancement overseas. However, these skillful persons may not be interested in working holiday system to work in Japan.
Return back home to rebuild your career to work in Japan.
I would personally give an advice to the people who correspond to the following points like ” rebuild your educational background and working history to challenge consolation match.” unless you stick to living in Japan continuously even after the expiry of visa term by all means
- Not sufficient educational qualification to satisfy the visa status
- Not sufficient working career which persuade a company to hire you
- In spite of looking for full-time jobs all the year around continuously, no company to hire you could be found.
- In spite of working very hard even in the position of part-time worker, a company didn’t promote you to full-time position.
Thinking reasonably, which do you think is the best to give you a lot of chances to rebuild your career, your country that grants you nationality or the country which grants you visa status which restrict the scope of activity by its conditions ?
One thing I want you to realize is that there is no visa status in Japan which includes a condition of giving a chance to look for jobs. In other words, Japan will not give a chance to the person who look for a chance. Japan will give a chance to the person who contribute to Japanese economy and society.
If you return back to your country to rebuild your career, then you can
- get a position in a company that has subsidiary in Japan to aim for intra-company transferee
- enter a Japanese company that expands in your country.
- graduate from university or college and join JET program
More haste, less speed. You will find a way out earlier than you struggle to find a way out in Japan. You don’t forget that no matter how bad employment situation your country is put in, you are granted the privilege to work in your country as priority. You don’t have any reason to miss the chance in your country.
But if you don’t want to go back home and still live in Japan
If you want to continue to stay in Japan even after the expiry of working holiday term and you don’t even satisfy the condition of working visa, there are two ways to survive in Japan.
- Change your visa status “special activity (working holiday visa)” to “Student”
This is the way you spend a lot of money and time but the probability you can work in Japan will raise up.
Go to Japanese university or college
As you may notice, the strategy you should plan by getting visa status “Student” is two ways you can choose which are….
- going to a Japanese language school which supports you to go to Japanese university
- going to a Japanese language school which supports you to find and takes care of employment through internship program.
On its premise, you need to go to a Japanese language school indicated as incorporated educational institution by Ministry of Education、Culture、Sports、Science and Technology. This is primary because your student visa application will not be approved unless you go to a Japanese school endorsed by the Japanese government.
Those Japanese language schools mostly provide the course of internship program and entering Japanese university.
The following educational institutions are recognized to issue the status type “Student”
- University
- College
- Graduation school
- Vocational school
- Specialization school;
- High school
- Japanese language school
- Junior high school
- Elementary school
- Special support education schools
While you hold “Student Visa” which you are granted permission to go to the Japanese language school, only the educational institution you can go to is a Japanese education school. As often as you change your school or attend additional school, you need to report and get permission from the immigration bureau to add additional conditions about your requirements of changing school or attending additional school.
A Japanese language school position is equivalent to a foundation course of university or college of western countries. But what is greatly different between foundation course and Japanese prep school is wether it belongs to university or independent educational institution which only support student to pass entrance exam of university or college.
There are a few university or college setting foundation course to increase opportunity for
foreigners openly in Japan as well. However, the majority of routes for foreigners to go to university is going to Japanese language school which support entrance exam except for the case where you transfer the present university to a Japanese university.
Japanese language school is generally not like you can be given qualification to go on to a university or college because you complete the course. Japanese prep school doesn’t belong to a specific university or college but it is a private educational institution to teach you a knowhow of passing the entrance examination of university or college.
Whether you pass the exam or not belongs to your responsibility. Almost all the Japanese schools set the term of the course of study for 2 years. If you fall annual entrance examination within this term, you will probably extend the term of study in a language school or change a language school.
You can take the exam as many as you want until you pass but the longer time it takes to prepare for going to university, the more funds you run out of. In addition, you apply for “Student Visa” repeatedly to the Immigrant bureau with the same reason, there is a possibility that you suspect if you commit a fraud by taking advantage of “Student Visa”.
Hopefully, you should be as serious as you pass the exam one time.
You can check this PDF which explains Japanese education system and shows overview about studying abroad to Japan. → Student guide to Japan.
In addition, when you change your status type, there are conditions you satisfy beforehand. Check if you are eligible to apply for it → Guidelines for Permission for Change of Status of Residence and Extension of Period of Stay
Internship program
You must look carefully for a Japanese language school which support you until you find a job from internship program. You may think this is naturally obvious role that a Japanese language school need to play.
However, there are some of Japanese language schools that doesn’t commit their obligation until you graduate from there although you invest very expensive tuition fees. For example, They teach as easy business manner or something as you can understand by books written about the same thing and don’t take care of your career building .
Not being caught by those bad Japanese language schools, you have to set a criteria with the following conditions prior to deciding which Japanese language school to enter.
- It has a full-time career counselor
- It holds a round-table conference with graduates who won Jobs on regular basis.
- It discloses a list of companies which graduates work for
- It has a exclusive company list that prioritize hiring its students
- It supports you even after you graduate from a school
A man who won success from working holiday
I want you to introduce a guy named Jonathan Hendriksen who successfully won economical success in the end since his first life in Japan started by working holiday.
He is a NewZealander entrepreneur who amazingly established a listed company in Japan in spite of a foreigner. He now smoothly expand his business he established in his country to the world.
When he was 15 years old, he visited Japan for 2 weeks on a school trip and was attracted very much to Japanese language, food and culture. He retraced his past that this trip made him to think he himself had no choice but to go to Japan.
When he was 18years old. He acquired working holiday visa and worked for Sheraton Hotel as bellman for a year.
When the visa expiry drew near, he couldn’t stop loving staying Japan continuously and he finally persuaded his parents to provide educational expenses for going on to a Japanese university. He studied very hard at prep school and passed exam of the university of Keio.
After grauation from the university of Keio, he was successfully employed by Canon. He worked for a Canon for a while, he started his business.
At that time, Japan was at the dawn of Internet business when he started up his business and he was one of those who were attracted by the possibility of online business. His first business idea is pretty conventional that he was going to sell original T-shirts on a online market.
However it didn’t work well and this put him in an difficult situation where if not rasing money by the next week, his company might have gone bankrupt. Surmounting this difficulty, he released a service for trading domains online. After all, he overcame this crisis of bankrapcy by receiving an order of building homepage from NTT.
He made exclusive license agreement with Value Click which was a startup that developed pay-per-click ads system and his company successfully went public on Japanese exchange 2 years later.
Jonathan Hendriksen’s life history
| 15years old | Visiting Japan for 2 weeks on a school trip |
|---|---|
| 18 years old | Coming to Japan for working holiday in Japan (“Visa type: special activity”) |
| 19 years old | Acquring “Student Visa” and enter prep school |
| 20 years old | Entering the university of Keio (“Student Visa”) |
| 25 years old | Graduating from the university of Keio |
| 25 years old | Working for Canon (Visa type : Engineer/ Specialist in Humanities/ International Services) |
| ? years old | Starting up his business (Visa type: “Buiness Manager”) | ? years old | Listing his company to a stock exchange in Japan (Visa type: “Buiness Manager”) |
Conclusion
I explained quite realistic way how you can work in Japan. Probably some of you think that it takes too much time to overcome the conditions that the visa status requires you although you want to go to work in Japan as soon as possible.
I know your feeling very much but you just put your strong desire aside and go to Japan for long trip. You may come across unexpected chances during your trip and even if nothing happens to you, blow up your image of living in Japan. If you make a lot of Japanese friends, some people brings opportunities for you.
I am not saying that you have to leave the rest up to fate but the important thing you should understand is that you start something already no matter how small it is to plug a gap between the reality and your desire. Going to Japan for sightseeing may be away from what you really desire to do but this is a start line.
Jonathan Hendriksen’s first experience in Japan was a school trip. Start from your small action and cherish your sensitivity. Then you can find a way out to make a living in Japan
If you really want to work in Japan, your feeling should still be excited after returning back home in your country and you should be able to endure to build your educational career or job history as preparation for a number of years.
Please always keep your focus on what you want to do in Japan.