Jason started looking for a job months before we moved to Japan. The idea of living off of one salary while also being in a country that encourages consumerism to the nth degree, while also wanting to travel, was scary.
So he got straight onto gaijinpot.com and other jobs in japan websites and started looking. There are also a lot of Facebook groups solely for the purpose of finding jobs in Japan, although a lot of these jobs are for people living in Japan already. There are exceptions though.
Jason was given a skype interview with English Instruction company NOVA. In the interview he was asked general informational questions, and also given some scenarios in which he was asked how he'd approach certain situations. They were fairly common sense questions.
After the interview he was offered a job, but upon getting more information about the job, it was a fairly shit excuse for a job. He was to be paid 1200 yen per hour (about 14 aussie dollars) and would have to work every single weekend. He got no holidays, and if he called in sick, he would actually have to PAY the company a couple hundred yen per lesson he was supposed to teach that day, so they can cover his lessons!
Now, by foreigner in Japan standards, that wage is fine. Most jobs being advertised for foreigners in Japan seem to be between 800~1500yen. But as a teacher, I pretty much only get weekends off... so if Jason had to work every weekend, we wouldnt be able to do anything. So what's the point of being on a working holiday visa...
Since we've moved to Japan, we've heard multiple people joke about how terrible NOVA is, with one of them even saying that NOVA means "No Vacation".
So we scratched that job. If we can't enjoy our time in Japan then we might as well be back in Aus...
Our next thing to try, aside from continuing to apply for jobs in gaijinpot, was the HelloWork centers. These are advertised on the Japanese Perth Embassy website as a way to help foreigners get a job. So surely it would be a foreigner friendly place to find a job...
That's where you're wrong, kiddo...
The HelloWork centers are available in most bigger Japanese cities. Jason went in to the Kobe one with big expectations. The website said that the allotted time for English speaking people was from 11 on Wednesdays. So he went in at this time and was told that their own website was wrong and he would have to some back at 1pm.
Off to a good start....
So he returned at 1 and was met with an English translator whose English skills could only be described as "woefully lacking". After trying to get through some basic information like what sort of jobs he was looking for, she searched in her database for suitable positions, printed off some jobs descriptions in Japanese and asked him for a Japanese copy of his resume.
When he told her that he didnt have one, as he doesnt speak much Japanese, she told him that she would make him one and that he had to come in the next day to pick this resume up, although the interviews would be in Japanese... Despite this being a time specifically for people who only speak English... In a place reccommended for foreigners to get a job... What good was an assistant who spoke some English if he then had to interview in Japanese?!
They told him that they would, when he picked up his resume the next day, call some of the positions to see if he could apply. He was told that some people might want an interview that day, or even straight away so he should come prepared to interview!
So he went in at his allotted time the next day, prepared for a possible interview in suit and tie, and was told that they had not yet done anything. No resume had been made, nor any calls. So once again, he had to leave and come back.
This time they had printed his resume and gave him a few copies, telling him to mail them to the job places himself, a completely different situation than what he had been told the day before. There were no interviews. It seems like the entire two days was a bust, although at least he got a Japanese resume out of it.
Since then, Jason actually got an email from a job he applied for on gaijinpot. It's from another English instructing job, from a company called Cosmopolitan Village. They offered flexible hours, an unheard of 3000 yen per hour!
They did a short phone interview (using someone elses phone as we've decided not to buy Japanese sims at this stage to save money) and he's going in to their office in Osaka monday to register as an instructor.
So I definitely reccommend gaijinpot as the best job finder in Japan. Hellowork, not so much. It's taken about 2 and a half weeks of being in Japan to get this job, for a time reference. I'm not saying that's standard, but that's what it took for my partner. And he hasn't actually started yet. So if this job turns out to be too good to be true, or no hours, I'll let you know!
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