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lardycake Wrote:For the 3rd year of my degree it's recommended to take a work placement, which can be abroad. I haven't heard of anybody going to Japan, as I'm in Europe (UK) it seems most of the people that go abroad do so in Europe.

I'm interested to know how realistic it is that I would be able to find a work placement for one year in Tokyo? I would take pretty much any job just to be there, ideally related to IT since that's what my degree is in.

The uni provides info about placements in the second year; as I'm currently in the first year nothing is being mentioned to me, I worry that it could take over a year just to find a placement.

Being from the US I don't really understand what this kind of position this is. Is this like an internship or is it a co-op position? Do you earn income while doing these sort of jobs usually? Are you suppose to go the usual route for getting hired?

If these are unpaid internships, you might be able to email companies that seem interesting and see if they would be willing to take you on.

Your immediately jumping to Tokyo, and just Tokyo, when talking about trying to do this work placement in Japan makes me think you need to do more research. There are other places in Japan besides Tokyo to work, and some of them are even big cities.

Also, your options are going to be very limited depending on your level of Japanese skill. Unless you have a special connection somewhere that can hook you up with something appropriate for your level of Japanese it's going to be extremely difficult. There's loads of Japanese people that would be going up for these same jobs or "work placements." The hiring situation works very differently in Japan than in other countries, and companies usually don't want to waste their time babysitting a foreigner with little provable expertise in a field important to their business. Your IT skills may be fine for your age, but do you think they'll want to employ a whole other person just to facilitate you doing that IT work for them?

The question you need to be able to answer is...why would they hire you over a Japanese person in your same position? Also now think about the reverse situation. Think of yourself trying to fill positions at a company in London...an application comes across your desk in a foreign language from someone in a foreign country not even out of school yet. How seriously do you take that application?

Note that in order to get a work visa, the company has sign something to the effect that they can't hire a Japanese person to do your job (either because it requires high foreign language proficiency, because you are such a highly skilled individual, or because of labor shortages). They must also pay you more than a certain cutoff amount for you to qualify for the visa, so that means no unpaid positions. There are trainee visas, but they are just a way to get low paid Chinese people into factories for a couple years before booting them out. Internships essentially don't exist here because of how people are hired and trained in companies (uni 4th year mass recruitment). Some exchange students can do short experience programs, but they are on student visas and a special case.

Anyways, your best bet is to wow someone at a Japanese job fair like the Boston Career Forum and get hired on with limited hours as a precursor to being a full employee post-graduation. I do not know what there is in Europe though.

In the long term, you're MUCH better off doing the internship somewhere where you can gain more hands on skill and not be a token foreigner. That way you will be much more attractive when applying for a real job in the future (be it in Japan or elsewhere).

lardycake Wrote:I would take pretty much any job just to be there, ideally related to IT since that's what my degree is in.

You should bear in mind that if you come out of uni with a CV which includes a year doing some random irrelevant thing then this may come across to future employers as either "I don't care about this field I did my degree in and which I'm now trying to get a job in" or "I wasn't actually good enough to get an IT related work placement". The sandwich year is not a gap year!

Your university ought to have some sort of careers advisory service which will probably be able to give you some advance info about how their placement setup works and the possibilities of working abroad in that year. It might be worth having a ferret around on their website or going to see them in person.

If you're from the UK, you can apply for Japanese working holiday visa. This will give you 12 months in Japan, in which you can do whatever you like. Only 1000 people allowed to apply per year, so you'd have to do so early:

http://www.uk.emb-japan.go.jp/en/visa/work_hol.html

As for finding a placement; you're best off looking at the big Western companies that have branches in Tokyo. Banks, media companies etc. Not sure how you'd afford to live there (most expensive city in the world) if it was an un-paid internship.

Best idea is to find out how it works for those on your course doing placements in Europe, and try and apply that to your situation.