Being overqualified for JET
 

My buddy was just refused from JET. I studied with him in Japan and he speaks fluent Japanese. He also already has experience teaching students there because it was part of his volunteer work for one of the classes he attended.

I think its major bullshit that JET would rather get people who know little about the country and speak zero Japanese. Does anyone know the reason for this? And is it just JET that is like this or do other companies prefer to hire less qualified applicants?

How in the world would anyone know why your friend was turned-down?

Speaking Japanese is NOT a prerequisite to being a JET. Having teaching experience is NOT a prerequisite to being a JET. Most JETs who are hired do not speak much Japanese and do not have any teaching experience.

That doesn't mean he was denied BECAUSE he can speak Japanese and has teaching experience. I wasn't there at the interview so I can't imagine what happened that made him not a winning candidate.

Keep in mind that Japan's population is in decline, and schools are shutting down. At the same time, the JET program's reputation is growing. When I applied over 10 years ago less than 20% of applicants from my city were hired. I hear now it is well under 10%. It's a popular program, and just because he was qualified doesn't mean he is hired.

he might not be a good ppl person or be good with kids? or have really bad patience? or he could have thrown a temper tantrum at the interview lol

I think it is more of that young American sense of privilege.

i dont understand this sense of privilege? :confused:

He means young American's have thoughts that they get to do what ever they want. Like this kid's friend. "I'm cool caus' I can speak Japanese, that must mean everyone wants to hire me because it's so uncommon and hard to do and I'm like the only person in the world who can do it."

oh okay i see. yea that is the problem with alot of young people these days, they think just bc they can do something they can do anything. but if he already has teaching experience over there then he must not be young?

You are pretty close, alanX.

What I mean is a phenomenon that has begun to happen in recent years in America, where recent college graduates in America are feeling they are worth more than entry level positions because they have paid so much for college. (The rate of tuition increases in the last decade is much higher than the rate of cost of living).

So what happens is you have recent graduates who won't apply for $12.50 an hour positions, but for managerial positions (looking at the salary) because as a graduate they feel they are "above" such a low pay wage.

This isn't exactly the situation biginjapan is talking about, but I sense the same "sense of privilege".

Biginjapan's friend is qualified for a job. He took the interview. He didn't get the job. Therefore that is bulls**t.

I had friends (several) who didn't get the same job in the 90s, and when they got their rejection letters they said "I wonder what I did wrong?". This generation doesn't ask that. They say "I got screwed. This is bulls**t".

The reality is that it is a hard economic time to keep on with that attitude.

Getting hired for a job is an honor, not a right.

I don't mean to hijack your thread, biginjapan, and my observations obviously go beyond the scope of your friend, who I don't even know, but this is a something I (and others) have observed lately.

As a Japanese tax-payer, I won't tolerate anyone calling the JET program b***s***. It's run entirely by our tax money. It was started many years ago when the Japanese economy was in its best and healthiest shape in the 20th century. People should give a lot of credit to Japan for even maintaining the program into these recent years when it no longer has any money to spare.

What other countries offer anything even close to JET? Certainly not the OP's country! I would have loved to teach Japanese in the U.S. through the same type of a nice government program. Every year, JET gives thousands of people from abroad a chance to live in Japan and experience its culture first-hand while earning a good income for the inexperienced young teachers that they usually are. JET gives you 100% job security when so many workers in Japan, Japanese or foreign, are having to work under much worse circumstances.

JET isn't b***s***. It's really the opposite of that if anything.

If he was that good at Japanese, he should have tried for the CIR position instead. It requires functional Japanese skills, and is more suited for people with a bit more experience in Japan. That's what I did, and I find it a lot more fulfilling than being a run-of-the-mill English teacher (in my humble opinion!). Even if he were dead-set on being an English teacher, there's a lot of other places he could have applied and probably gotten accepted.

JF is lucky to have both of you as members, and two truer comments in a row have never been posted.

Right now in the Japan the image of "teacher" for children of any age is aging. What I mean is, new Japanese teacher are NOT being hired, as there are fewer children to teach. So children see people in their late 30s and up as "teacher age" now. When I taught in Japan in the 90s there were lots of teachers in their 20s. Now the only teachers in their 20s working at public schools in Japan, essentially, are JETs. Nagoyankee is right. The Japanese people pay a lot to have native speakers come and live in Japan to teach their children. It isn't bulls**t.

And Hatredcopter asks the best question. If his Japanese was so good, he would be a more obvious choice for CIR. If he was "overqualified" for ALT, then CIR is the way to go.

I was always under the impression that once you had the prerequisites the program didn`t look much further. And also that most people who apply do not get accepted.

Unless they came out and said he was overqualified, chances are he was just not selected via their lottery. It`s life. Deal with it. Not everything goes as plans.

It`s kind of funny because it seems that everyone who doesn`t get accepted into JET decides that they were discriminated against somehow. If they speak Japanese - it`s because of that. If they don`t speak Japanese - it`s because of that. If they`ve been to Japan on vacation, that`s the reason... But yet if they have never visited Japan - that must be why.
I`ve even hear people moan and groan that the reason they weren`t accepted over someone else was because they didn`t drive a Japanese car to the test site while the other person did.

When there are more applicants than positions, some people aren`t going to get in. Are you trying to say your friend should get special treatment because they have skills that aren`t required or considered in the selection process? Seems a bit silly.

I applied for the 2009 program, but I, unfortunately, didn't get to the interview portion of it. Who knows why. I have tutoring experience, have worked in a school, unofficial experience with teaching reading to children, going to school for education, and I study Japanese language and culture. I felt that I had a good chance of being chosen for an interview, but seems I wasn't. I wouldn't call the program "BS", though. There are just so many applicants. They can't take everyone. For all I know, maybe my application was fine, but some other applicant did better my like maybe 1% or something.

I know of another applicant who had a lot of good stuff on his application, and he also wasn't chosen for an interview, and I figured he definitely would have. There are just too many people applying, probably. It's like MMM said, the program is getting more attention compared to say five or ten years ago.

They most definitely look farther than basic qualifications. The basic qualifications + your Statement of Purpose letter (of why you want to join JET) + your required letters of reference + your application are needed just to get to the interview stage, and even if you do all of that right, they still only have so much time to do interviews so they need to cut thousands of applicants without even meeting them unfortunately.

If you do make it to the interview, they look at your attitude, personality, how you answer their questions, your ability to speak in a tense situation, how they think you'd handle life in Japan and the job, etc. And even if you do well on all of that, there are only so many positions to be filled, and that number has been shrinking in recent years (there were once over 6000 JETs per year, it's now down to about 5000).

Finally, remember that JET is run by 3 separate govt agencies, only 1 of which has anything to do with teaching. The other 2 deal with foreign relations, and they seem want a variety of people who may (or may not) have at least some interest in Japan, teaching, or foreign relations, but not necessarily a rabid Japanophile. Such a person may not be a living breathing piece of foreignness transplanted into Japan to serve as a local level ambassador and teaching assistant, but might instead go completely native in Japan, practicing Japanese instead of speaking English, becoming indistinguishable from a Japanese person except maybe for his race. And that ISN'T what the JET program wants... it's 1 reason they set a limit on the number of years you can be on the program. (Used to be 3, recently increased to 5). They don't want the JETs to become "too Japanese" in language, customs, etc. Sure, it might make it easier for them to do their day to day job, but in the larger picture, their "island of foreignness" will have been eroded to a small barren atoll over the years there, and they want to keep refreshing that island, bringing in new blood to revitalize things, etc. Perhaps they felt his friend was "not foreign enough", as crazy as that may sound, but instead was out to just improve his Japanese ability and assimilate into Japanese society... ?

My theory:

When the application forms come in, they have the interns draw either a square for paper, circle for rock, or x for scissors. Next they have to shuffle them. Now there are only a certain number they want to interview so picking two at a time they get a winning pile made.

During the interview process, they try to determine who has the essence of a rock, paper or scissors. After they come to a consensus, your name and mark is written down on a slip of paper. Now this round of janken is best out of three. Each win a person tallies when their name is matched to another drawn from the hat is marked on their slip. This round continues until they have their picks.

ps~With a shrinking economy, I would wager that you will see more cities like mine where only 3 JETs are among the total 21 ALTs.

Unless you're leaving out information, I don't see anything that shows he is qualified at all actually.

10. Not have lived in Japan for three or more years in total since 2000.
14. Hold at least a Bachelor’s degree or obtain one by the departure date (See Note 2), or be qualified to teach at primary/elementary or secondary schools or obtain such qualifications by the departure date.

Two of the big ones right there. You said he's already been there. Do you know how long? He also has lots of knowledge already according to you..you do know the program is designed to give the rest of the world a taste of Japan? To learn about it, and come to appreciate it and its language. If your friend went off sounding like he already knew everything he wouldn't be OVERqualified...but simply not qualified at all.

Be interested in Japan, and be willing to deepen their knowledge and appreciation of that interest after arrival.

I'm not ragging on your friend at all. I think it's great he knows Japanese and wants to teach over there, but sometimes the answers you are looking for are right in front of you.

JET turned me down three years ago.

But you know what? I didn't whine and moan. I went on with my life. If your friend is really qualified to be here, he'll find a way to get here. It may be harder, it may be more expensive, but if he does the work, he can get here.

So either he needs to be quiet, realise it isn't personal, and work harder on an alternate route to Japan, or he needs to recgonise that this isn't where he wanted to be anyhow, and then he needs to be quiet MORE.

Well I've been wondering about being over-qualified.


Do you think 4 years of High School Japanese and 4 years of college Japanese would lessen my chances? :glasses:

I certainly hope not-- but I think I'm going to make it clear I'm going there to speak English, not necessarily Japanese... and I clearly have a lot to learn.

Knowledge of Japanese does not HURT your chances of getting into JET. Naturally a LOT of the applicants are going to be interested in Japan and are going to have taken Japanese. Hell, half of my interview for JET was IN Japanese.

As a translator I have taken a lot of translation tests. These are tests publishers and translation companies design to test and see if you are really qualified. They tend to be tricky and time-consuming.

At least a half-dozen times I have taken the test and I get a response "Congratulations, you passed our test. You scored XX/100 points, which makes you qualified to translate our materials."

Then I never hear from them again.

It's the same thing as JET hiring.

In my opinion, I think JET is so difficult and unrewarding. It's not worth all of the trouble that you have to go through, just to be a English teacher's assistant for a few semesters. I think there's much easier ways of getting a job in Japan.

Are you speaking from personal experience as a JET? Because I was on JET for 2 years and absolutely loved it.

Sure, you could go with the faster and easier private English school route, but you have to pay for your airfare there and back, you have to teach by yourself instead of with a Japanese teacher, and you typically have to teach in the afternoons, evenings, and weekends because that's when schoolkids and businessmen have the free time to be in a private English class. Your pay won't be as good, you'll probably have to find your own place to live, and you likely won't have as many perks as JETS (like paid vacation days).

IMHO, JET is certainly not perfect, but it can be the best way to go to Japan.

Hmmmm..maybe just simply move to Japan and get an average job and live an average life? Sounds pretty good to me.

Let me guess.

Interviewer : So, give me a reason why I should choose you over the other applicants?

You friend : I love Japanese women despite the fact that they seem to dislike men with muscular builds.

That's a little... rude. It seems to me your underestimating how hard it is to just "simply move to Japan" and "get an average job."

What exactly do you have against the JET program? O_o

Kind of difficult to get an "average job" if you're not a citizen of the country or have a Visa sponsor. It's more difficult to do it that way as opposed to going through something like JET, where they sponsor your Visa and pay your way there.

It pays more than most other English teaching jobs and more than most "straight out of college" jobs. I absolutley loved my three years there. Worked only 35 hours a week, and wouldn't trade the experience for the world.

Going through the JET hiring process is a lot easier than that scenerio. Unless you are married to a Japanese you don't get to just "go to Japan and get a job". It doesn't work like that. You have to be hired first by...a program like JET.

I hope I'm not too off topic here... but is there any other good programs like JET that you would recommend. Many people on here seem to have good knowledge about it... It sounds like JET is extremely hard to get into, especially with them downsizing.

JET is a government sponsored program, and the only national one of its kind...so the short answer would be "no".

Okay a question for you MMM.....besides JET, what would you say is the easiest and quickest way to LIVE (not just visit for a few months, but live. Maybe for a few years) in Japan?

Get a working holiday visa!

I don't think Americans are allowed them... but if you're from Canada, Britain, Australia or New Zealand you definitely are among others... (i.e. you're a citizen of any of these countries).

So move to Canada, get their citizenship and THEN get the working visa~
XDD

Are not working holiday visas only six months? Plus being an ALT technically you should have an Instructor's Visa.

There are some cities now that are totally skipping the whole process of liasing with JET or eikaiwas and hiring ALTs direct. This is in the end the best route for the city and the teachers. It saves thousands of dollars. Wait...millions of yen. But when I say some, I am really talking about only a handful. The biggest obstacle the advancement of this trend faces is the boards of education. English teachers can be a lot to handle their first few months adjusting, and the ALT directors love being able to delegate responsibility elswhere.

For an American, probably AEON.

AEONet Homepage

I believe working holiday visa's are one year. And it allows you to work any job from fast food to ski resorts. I know there are lots of working holiday people from New Zealand working the ski resorts in Japan.

You are right about the ski resorts. They, the ones following the rules at least, prefer gaijin with working holiday visas. If you want to go that route, check out snowworkers.com

Thank you so much. Will look into it.


Jeez why can't all answers to my questions be that straight-forward? XDD

Because it isn't the answer to your question. You still don't qualify for a work visa.

It was the answer to that question. I asked for a simple and quick way to move to Japan, and he gave me an answer.

And of course I don't qualify for a working visa. I'm only a senior in high school.

Oh, I get where you're coming from. I didn't really find my four years of university "quick and simple," but I am sure you will breeze through it no trouble.

I think he meant AFTER completing school. Let's all take a deep breath and continue in the spirit of the thread's intention.