Hello everyone,

I am in the process of securing employment in Japan. I am 20 years old and a digital media agency wants to hire me as a web designer, but I currently have no bachelor's degree (though I am currently trying to obtain a double major in Japanese and Computer Science). I don't have 3 years of actual work experience either, just some freelance here and there that I showed them and they really enjoyed my work. I did study abroad in Japan 1 year approximately and I have a lower advanced Japanese ability that I showed them by video. Will the company not be able to hire and then relocate me because of something bureaucratic like not having a degree or 3 to 10 years of experience? Will it still be possible for them to obtain a Certificate of Eligibility for me?

Edit: I'm American, and I will be continuing to do school online if I do manage to go.

Without a university degree or experience, it is impossible to get a work visa. I beleive that you can work under a marriage visa, supposing you are married to a Japanese citizen. Barring that, the government strait up wont bend the rules for visas; it doesn't matter what the company wants.

I honestly don't have much of a legit idea, but I've heard some things here and there that you might be able to research further.

People on this site and others have posted experiences where they were working and learning in Japan as a university student or something of a foreign exchange student, although the jobs tended to be something like working in a convenience store, etc. Based on that, I'm assuming that they didn't have a bachelor's degree, yet were still able to live and work in Japan.

While I'm not sure if this is a thing or not, you might look into a student visa of some sort, or see if the process might allow for a switch in education, making it so that you can live, work, and study in Japan at a Japanese school. Or something as a foreign exchange student.

[s0apgun]

Buy a degree online. Yeah don't do that... (maybe) D:

I'd say finish your degree out before you go there and drop the Japanese major it will be useless unless you're trying to get a PhD in linguistics or Japanese history.

Quote:Will it still be possible for them to obtain a Certificate of Eligibility for me?

The only people that can definitively answer this for you is Japanese immigration. Your best bet is to get the company to contact immigration and sort out what paperwork they will need to submit with your CoE application. If they are unable to do this themselves then they should employ an immigration lawyer who can.

The Immigration Information Center phone number is 03-5796-7112 and they are open from 8:30am to 5:15pm JST. (http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/english/info/)

Immigration are going to tell you basically what the site says. You need a degree or 10 years of work experience to qualify for the engineer visa type.

That said, if the company doesn't realize you don't have a degree then you could actually do what s0apgun said and buy a degree. Its not likely anyone will be verifying the claim, just make sure you aren't buying "Harvard" or something stupid like that. The degree requirement is stupid in my opinion.

If the company does know, then bring it up with them and figure out how they are planning to work around that.

I can't comment on Americans working in Japan, but I can tell you that foreigners working in US design studios become prisoners of the company that they work for. The company has a large amount of control over foreigners because it's difficult for them to move to another studio in the country. Practically, what this amounts to at a lot of companies is citizens and people with green cards leave at a decent hour and people on H1b visas end up working a few extra hours every night. Also, people on H1b visas often get put on the least glamorous jobs. This doesn't happen at every studio, but it happens more often than not.

Again, I can't speak for how it works in Japan, but you may want to investigate. Also consider that working hours at some Japanese studios are longer than they are in the US already, so it could get really crazy with no time for anything but work. And this isn't to say that you might not want to go anyway - just to make you aware of some things to consider. Honestly, if I were you, I would probably do it anyway if I could.

Foreigners own their work visa in Japan, but they have to be employed to stay in Japan. In addition they have to work in the field their visa allows.

My biggest worry I would have over a "Web Designer" position is that if the work is contracted (ie: 12 months), you might be looking at being let go after the site is designed.

vix86 Wrote:Immigration are going to tell you basically what the site says. You need a degree or 10 years of work experience to qualify for the engineer visa type.

That said, if the company doesn't realize you don't have a degree then you could actually do what s0apgun said and buy a degree. Its not likely anyone will be verifying the claim, just make sure you aren't buying "Harvard" or something stupid like that. The degree requirement is stupid in my opinion.

If the company does know, then bring it up with them and figure out how they are planning to work around that.

Wouldn't immigration officials check if the degree comes from an accredited university?

Stansfield123 Wrote:Wouldn't immigration officials check if the degree comes from an accredited university?

There are websites that sell fake degrees that basically look real. They won't sell from conference universities like Harvard or Uni of <State> since the schools trademark their school logos and go after people using them. They will sell fake diplomas for colleges that are smaller though and every state has a few.

That said. How are immigration officials going to check? Call the school? Lets be realistic here, how many applications for a work visa do you think embassies get each month? There are just going to be too many apps to call every school to confirm this stuff.

Also remember that the diploma only accounts for a single piece of the Cert. of Eligibility packet that a company files; its a check box. There are also letters from the company explaining the position at the company and why you are a good fit for it. Salary. And lots of other stuff. I would imagine that the embassy expects the company to do the background checking on diplomas and certifications for a position and not the embassy.

Faking a bachelors degree is some of the stupidest and most dangerous advice I have ever seen on this forum.

OP, finish out your degree. Drop the Japanese major if that allows you to finish faster. If you're being offered jobs like this right now then chances are you'll be able to find more jobs later when your design and Japanese skills are even better.

Also, I would be wary of this company. They should know whoever they hire needs a degree in order to get a work visa and shouldn't have even bothered interviewing you. A company not knowing this doesn't bode well for the rest of their operation. They're probably not dangerous, but you might be out of a job sooner than you've anticipated due to their lack of business skills.

[s0apgun]

It wasn't advice but I have heard of people doing this to work in Japan including some popular j-vloggers say they know people in Japan with a fake degree. I would never do it though.

Teaching jobs, the most abundant job for foreigners in Japan, requires no degree. It's just a hoop to jump through.

vix86 Wrote:Teaching jobs, the most abundant job for foreigners in Japan, requires no degree. It's just a hoop to jump through.

The jobs don't require a degree per-say, but Immigration requires it for the visa. Supposing you are on a different visa that allows work, such as a spousal visa sure, then you can find one without a degree.But since, visa violations are treated like a serious crime, I wouldn't screw around.

vix86 Wrote:

Stansfield123 Wrote:Wouldn't immigration officials check if the degree comes from an accredited university?

There are websites that sell fake degrees that basically look real. They won't sell from conference universities like Harvard or Uni of <State> since the schools trademark their school logos and go after people using them. They will sell fake diplomas for colleges that are smaller though and every state has a few.

That said. How are immigration officials going to check? Call the school? Lets be realistic here, how many applications for a work visa do you think embassies get each month? There are just going to be too many apps to call every school to confirm this stuff.

Also remember that the diploma only accounts for a single piece of the Cert. of Eligibility packet that a company files; its a check box. There are also letters from the company explaining the position at the company and why you are a good fit for it. Salary. And lots of other stuff. I would imagine that the embassy expects the company to do the background checking on diplomas and certifications for a position and not the embassy.

oooooh, I completely misunderstood. I though you guys meant getting a degree from one of those unaccredited online universities (called "degree mills").

Sure, a fake diploma would likely fool immigration officials, but forgery is a crime. What if you get to Japan, and go to your job? What do you tell your employer? Do you lie, and tell them that you went to a real university? If you do, that just gets you even deeper into trouble, and you're exposing yourself to serious criminal charges.

I'd say go for it. The worst case scenario is you'll be found out and forced to get a real degree, will then enroll in a community college, and get into hilarious televisable situations.
(PS. Don't actually do it)

Stansfield123 Wrote:Sure, a fake diploma would likely fool immigration officials, but forgery is a crime. What if you get to Japan, and go to your job? What do you tell your employer? Do you lie, and tell them that you went to a real university? If you do, that just gets you even deeper into trouble, and you're exposing yourself to serious criminal charges.

I'm not really encouraging anyone to break the law. But I have a lot against the artificial wall that is "College Degrees" that gets used in the employment world these days. Its no different for requiring it to get into Japan. I'm very cynical about the whole thing especially since stupid jobs like English teaching require degrees.

The thing about the OP is that if he's qualified for the job in expertise, there's no reason why the company would question his college background. The problem might be getting his story to line up with prior education. 20 yrs old and graduated from college? "When did you graduate high school?" Kind of thing.

I'm just cynical about the entire college system in the US and it's 'requirement' for many jobs, because school is expensive in the states.

Kuzunoha13 Wrote:forced to get a real degree, will then enroll in a community college

While you're joking. Japan doesn't have community colleges and you wouldn't be able to work [full-time (legally)] while going to school because it would change your visa status to 'student.'

Plot twist vix86 works for Japanese immigration

I don't have any specific advice regarding your questions, but some general considerations:

I don't want to scare you out of your adventure, but I'd recommend you to also think about the mid-term consequences of your actions and to verify if their implications agree with your goals. I say this because there seem to be a lot of people that go to Japan on a whim, enjoy their time there, but then slowly find themselves at a turning point. E.g. people who go the usual college->teach English route sometimes end up in a tricky situation after a few years: They don't want to teach English, but their options in Japan are limited. However, returning to their home countries and starting a career isn't that easy either, as they are older compared to others and probably lack the specific experience necessary, in addition to the disadvantage they have wrt networking, seeing as they stayed in Japan. So if you spend too much time aimlessly in Japan, you might arrive at a point where it's difficult to transition to another career and your options might be limited to Japan, whether you'll like it at that point or not.

I don't really know a lot about your line of work, so you'll have to decide. If webdesign is mainly merit and experience based, there's probably little harm to what you envision. However, if your industry of choice strongly values academic credentials, it might be good to hold off going to Japan until you finish your degree despite that being the boring old beaten track.

Web design is generally a legit field and career, so doing that in Japan wouldn't be hurting your career advancement compared to doing English teaching.

Degrees aren't important if people will hire you on your skill and experience. Consider that in most instances, even if you HAVE a degree, after working 2-3 years in a job, people stop putting their college degree on their resume. The experience you get from work far exceeds the piece of paper from college.

In web design, people will hire you based on your portfolio (even without employment experience). You don't really need a degree (except maybe when companies are looking to take advantage of some incentive the government set up for hiring college graduates - this happens a lot in Europe, or when you need a work visa).

In both cases, the issue is with the government, not with companies doing the hiring.

You need a degree for entry level positions, when a company knows that it needs to train you anyway. That's when they want to know that you're at least "trainable" before they bother. And having successfully gone through four years of college proves to them that you're capable of showing up and paying attention, and you'll eventually gain the skills necessary to be productive for them.

I thought about getting a fake degree but decided against it. After lots of Google searching I found the fastest way to get a legit accredited degree.

You can test out of a 4 year degree in 6 months or less if you have lots of free time. A lot sooner if you already have college credit.

I got mine in 9 months while working full-time so I could come to Japan and work. Check out CLEP or DANTES exams. You can get college credit for passings these exams instead of sitting in a classroom.