Hey everyone,

My name's Ari, and I recently joined this site to help me as I work through RTK 1; I want to thank you all for taking the time to share your input, it is extremely helpful.

One reason why I'm interested in learning the kanji and achieving educated proficiency in Japanese is because of my goal to work and possibly live in Japan in the future. I'm in college now, and I've been working on trying to find an internship or volunteer job with a company/NGO in Japan for the coming spring and fall 6 months. I have living arrangements in the Tokyo/Chiba area, but I'm not about to ignore opportunities from anywhere else. I'd like to work in a Japanese office, to learn more about business practices, and also to lay ground work for a psychological research project which I may base a thesis on.

If any of you could help me with advice on people/places to contact, programs/offers etc. I would be extremely grateful.

Thanks very much.

Here is my email address:

adw [at] dartmouth [dot] edu

admin: please don't post email addresses that can be directly "mined" by spam bots.

Right off-the-bat.

I'd suggest:

http://www.careerforum.net
(Japanese page)
http://www.careerforum.net/index.asp?lang=E
(English page)

They hold Japanese job fairs roughly 4 or 5 times per year.
The Boston Career Forum is the largest Japanese-English
bilingual job fair in the world.

Pretty much all the big Japanese companies from all
industries are here. I have to warn you, though. Your
Japanese has to be really good.

Thanks for the quick reply! I really appreciate your help.

Unfortunately, I actually went to the Boston Career Forum back in November, it was a good experience, but, as expected, it was mostly focused on job training/full time recruiting, and internships were not so plentiful. Still worth it though.

I'm studying in Japan, and gradute next March, and am thinking about working here too. The thing I've found though, is that Japanese companies offer *really bad* wages. I'll have a Masters degree in Computer Science and some work experience, and most Japanese companies offer around 23-25万円 per month for that, plus bonuses. The thing is, 23万円 　per month is terrible - that's the kind of wage you could get working at a grocery store back in Australia, seriously. I don't get how Japanese would want to work for so little, considering the living costs are perhaps the highest in the world. I have heard that some companies pay bonuses of up to 50% of the yearly salary - but even then it only makes a wage like the ones I am seeing offered reasonable, not excellent.

Am I missing something there? Are any of you working in Japan? What has your expereince been like? Is it possible to get by with OK, but not fluent, Japanese?

The finance industry in Japan is where the huge money is for software developers.
Try http://www.workinjapan.com. Some of these jobs pay 6 to 20 million yen per year(That's roughly $60,000 to $200,000). C++ and Java seem to be pretty big(as well as previous finance industry experience). Due to the salary level, all are senior level positions. So don't
bother applying if you don't have a lot of experience.

Some jobs require no Japanese whatsoever. But, as always, the more Japanese
you know the better. In fact, you'd be better off getting a JLPT Level 1 or 2
certification, since many jobs require it(i.e. when they say business level they
mean JLPT 2, when they say fluent, they mean JLPT 1).

Of course, the JLPT is terrible at testing Japanese language ability, but it's still required by most companies. So you're better off doing it even if you don't want to.

Good luck.

Thanks chamcham. Yeah, I've done some looking around on the recruitment sites and it seems the finance industry pays some serious yen for programmers. I might not have the type of experience they are after though, but wow, those are some nice salaries

I'm hoping that if I do end up going back home, I can come back in a few years (maybe to one of those nice paying finance jobs).

The 250,000 yen a month salary is a Japanese government guideline for salaries to be paid to foreigners. It was originally meant to apply to teachers but many Japanese companies arbitrarily apply the guideline irrespective of job type. Since the exchange rate is so bad now the pay is dreadful by comparison.

An additional point which is of interest is about contract lengths. In it's wisdom the government decided to `protect' foreign workers from bad employers by suggesting contracts should be limited to 3 years. Instead of protecting workers it has become an easy way to spring clean foreign workers out.

Foreign workers' ignorance of the law allow companies to exploit foreigners with almost no comeback.

In general pay and conditions for foreign workers are dreadful in Japan where racial equality is not required under the law even though the law states that all workers of equal status receive equal treatment. The crux is the equal status bit. Few foeigners are granted contracts offering equal status with Japanese colleagues and so the bit about equal treatment is effectively nullified.

Starting salaries are famously low in Japan. New graduate hires in Japan typically make around Y200,000/month, even working at the big firms. That's for natives, not foreigners. Bonuses are around 4 months salary. One reason the salary is so low is that they don't expect new graduates to contribute much, so the first years are sort of on-the-job training. Foreign companies usually have much higher pay scales, and in my experience its much better to work at a foreign company than a Japanese one.

How good does your Japanese need to be to be successful to find a student internship at BCF? I am a sophomore in college and have had a number of business-related internships. My Japanese is alright (plan to take JLPT 2 this year). I was thinking of going to BCF this November, but I was just wondering about my chances there.