How would one go and change his life from being in Poland, an engineer, knowing basic Japanese (JLPT N5 certificate) just after college? I'm thinking of settling in Poland but my goal in life is to live in Japan with my fiancee for a period of time (x-years). I'm still pretty young (almost 24) and I can adapt and learn new IT skills pretty quick, but I have NO IDEA how I could contact any japanese agency that would hook me up with some kind of company. How much of starting cash should I have to get on my feet in Japan? Any advice would be helpful
I.t. is a dead end, with the bitter taste of ageism. Just my experience. Well by Japan I believe you mean Tokyo. As a foreign IT worker you would be applying with a foreign company in Japan, which is a shrinking market atm due to the markets. Apply for work with some of the few foreign financial companies left in Japan and just be persistent. Send your resume every week for months. Every week. Fax it and email it. Persistence wins. Savings? Say six months expenses at around $3000 a month so say $18,000. You could try to get a Job at the POLISH EMBASSY. Which seems like your best bet really. Poland Embassy , Japan 2-13-5 Mita Postal Code: 153-0062 Meguro-ku Tokyo Japan Phone: +81-3-57947020 Fax: +81-3-57947024 Email: polamb@poland.or.jp Website URL: www.poland.or.jp
Nobody will hire you in Japan unless you already live here (even w/ a tourist visa). It is of course, not a dead end if you're good at what you do, and is one of the more recession proof jobs. Securities always pay higher, and are the more dominantly hiring fims of foreigners, but you can work in just about any industry if you're good enough, and one is doing better than the oher.
So I need to just go Japan on my own? That's the hardest part I don't wanna go just to find out I'll be living on the streets with no job opportunities. There are companies that take care of these things within the EU (in I could go to UK quite easily and have an easy start), there's nothing like that in JP?
FIRST: Fuck VBulletin. It sucks ass. Yes, until you get a doctorate or a shit load of experience. Only for English teaching, and they abuse you.. Japan is hardly a melting pot of foreigners wanting to find work. It's one of the most homogeneus populations on the planet. As such, there's not a lot of companies accomodating people in your situation. Also, no employers give a shit about people outside of Japan, so it's a pointless service to offer. Now, note that the economy is shit and the hiring numbers are down. Maybe this is where Assembler sees it as a dead end. As such, your competition will speak conversational or higher Japanese, and it WILL mean the difference in getting the job and not getting it.
I wonder if China would be a better place for him to find a job? I've read somewhere (NYTimes?) where there is a big hiring of foreigners in China. From there, it would be cheap/easy to visit Japan occasionally, no?
There is only one but quite essential question coming up. What the hell would he like to do in China?
It'll never be easy to visit Japan as long as international flights are coming in to Narita. That shit just sucks. Tokyo to Seoul: Flight time: 2 hours. Total travel time door to door: 6 hours +. China would probably be better long term for lots of reasons, unless of course you're a captain of a ship and deem it necessary to ram into Japanese vessels.
I thought he might be looking for a neat place to work/live. China is definitely the new hotspot and his experience there would be invaluable down the road. From all the posts I've seen here, it seems that Japan is on the decline for various reasons.
It looks like I'm gonna have to migrate to the UK, save a lot and after 3-4 years think about going to Japan, at least they've got 2L cherry coke in the UK.
Just theoretically speaking, if one were to have a ton of money to live off of while getting on their feet - how possible (or impossible!) would it be to move to Japan on a tourist visa and attempt to start your own IT business? I'm thinking more in terms of the bureaucracy involved - and the longer term - how natives would respond to your business (i.e. boycott that gaijin company)
You'd need to find some type of sponsor. Pretty hard to sponsor yourself right out of the gates, but there are business investor visas. I know what the requirement is for someone like me... but not sure about someone "new". Not impossible, but probably way, way more tape than for a long term resident. I'm kind of guessing there. It would help if you had a company abroad (that made money) and you were setting up a foreign branch (gaishikei) here. They're handled separately from normal businesses.
