Get a job, Sha na na na

Some ex-pats in Japan do not plan to stay long. Others are around for the long haul and will develop a career here - whichever the case, what are the options? Is it all teaching? In the following pages KS talks to a variety of people of have found a bunch of different answers to these questions.

For most people from English-speaking countries, teaching at one of the name-brand eikaiwa is their experience of working in Japan. Depending where you work, the pay is passable and you might even get a bit of time off once in a while to appreciate the host country.

For those who are serious about teaching, the career track is clear - upgrade from company training to a certificate, diploma or MA, move on to colleges, educational publishing or shift from one country to another to see the world while being paid.

Beware! Some EFL employers around the world may not be impressed with even several years of teaching experience from Japan, aware that there is a difference between some of the corporately trained methods and generally accepted TESOL practice.

Dan Hutchinson who recently moved on after two years in Japan and who is working in recruitment for the British Council in London tells KS “I think the … issue is the lack of certification needed to work in Japan. For pretty much anywhere else in the world … the minimum requirement is a CELTA or Trinity. Experience is not always necessary and so I guess in that respect the experience in Japan would not count for much if you did not have the certificate.”

So a tour of duty in Japan on your CV is not necessarily an obstacle to career development if combined with internationally recognised teaching qualifications.

However, teaching may not be your vocation, and Dan adds “if you are leaving the teaching field … the time [in Japan] looks like a cool and exotic thing to have done.”

For some, a period of English teaching here has opened up exciting opportunities with or without a teaching qualification. Experience teaching in Japan can contribute to developing careers in corporate training, human resources or recruitment.

What if you are actually staying in Japan? What alternatives are there for you, and what can you expect once you step out of the teaching fold and into the parallel universe?

If you are after the big bucks, think financial markets, think IT.

We spoke to Maneck Mohan, Director of Hong Kong-based Recruit.net, which runs a Japan job finding site. “Financial market experience is in great demand right now. Most major banks, hedge funds and financial firms are aggressively hiring people with experience in finance and especially sophisticated products like derivatives … This trend also creates a big demand for middle office and support people who are also needed to manage this growth - specific areas in demand are legal, regulatory, compliance, operations and technology people.”

Talking of whom, “IT is also a very hot sector across all disciplines. Software development skills in either C++ or Java are especially hard to source in Japan, Accredited IT project managers and CCIE (Cisco) networking specialists are also in high demand”.

For residents of the Kansai on the verge of packing bags to head for IT hotspot Tokyo, put that toothbrush back in the mug and consider this. The Osaka municipality is nurturing the growth of IT and the creative digital industry in this area in direct competition with Kanto. In January this year, Osaka prefecture established something called the Osaka Digital Contents Industry Promotion Council. What could be just another talk shop is given real oomph by the inclusion of representatives of 50 companies working in digital content production, television broadcasting, and the sales of communications equipment and mobile telephones. Further strength is added by a fighting fund, the “Osaka Digital Contents Fund,” a funding project for investing in digital content production projects. “This is the first project of this type to be undertaken by a municipality in Japan”, says the prefecture's blurb.

Once in with another company here, time to open the mind: the experience will be unlike either the language school or working back home and may spring a few surprises on you. There are stories from smaller companies of trained digital designers being ordered round to the boss's house on a Sunday to trim the hedges, requirements of absolute deference to the employer, and long, long hours. These are risks, not the rule, but if you are nurturing a family, be careful who you get hooked up with.

Business process and practice are sometimes different and may seem slower than you are used to.

Lance Shields, Creative Director at Amway Japan since January this year and who prior to his current position spent four years as a creative director with a design agency in Tokyo, explains. “I would say it's to do with a lot of the formalities of the language. It takes more time and more meetings to agree anything here.”

Lance points to the process of generating and adopting ideas. “I would say … basically, brainstorming is a lot more difficult to do here - brainstorming meaning throwing out wild ideas and not analysing the idea to death before it has time to breath.” Some of the issues will be familiar to the English teacher: “It is hard for people to interrupt, and it's not just an American thing. The Japanese language puts the idea at the end of what you are saying. English puts it first.” The English speaker knows what's coming and can jump in when ready. In Japanese you have to wait and see what's coming.
“What you tend to get is people doing monologues.”

On the other hand, working in a Japanese company can give a foreigner an edge. Many business practices here are less developed than in the US or Europe - branding, integration of new technologies with business, management systems, …and so on and so on. This allows the well-informed foreigner to identify and exploit opportunities to innovate and this leads to a potential for satisfaction when your ideas are adopted and implemented.
“If there is an opportunity to take a risk, it can make a real difference so you can see a lot of impact right away.”

Clearly, financial or IT or design skills are not things all of us have lying about the house. Gone with the bubble are the days when a Japanese company would hire you because you were foreign and then spend all day throwing money at you while you drank tea. The market place is competitive and the skills you bring to it need to be real and developed.

Lance first learned web design and coding skills in his spare time while supporting himself working at a big language school in Osaka. There was a stint at college in New York, then his first break as a designer with one of the big international operations based in San Francisco, which ended with the dotcom boom. Then it was back to Japan and a big immediate step up the ladder with a position as creative director.

As in any other country, skills development and long-term planning and positioning are crucial.

As is Japanese language. Speaking of his international colleagues at Amway, Lance says “we would not have got the job if we couldn't speak Japanese.”

Maneck says, “bilingualism is a huge advantage obviously. In the finance sector people with formal Japanese able to interact with regulatory bodies like the FSA and also with Western managers in English are highly sought after and can literally name their prices.”

Intangeable, but of equal importance, is cultural sensitivity. Maneck again: “Take the time to learn and appreciate the Japanese culture and work mentality. Japan is a country like no other and the ex-pats who have been most successful in building careers in Japan are the ones who understand and appreciate the idiosyncrasies of this fantastic nation.”

It may be a long haul for the foreigner living here to get out of the teaching groove, but in the end, you end up with a unique experience and a killer CV.

Text: Chris Page • Illustration: Jack Lefcourt