Applying For The First Time (Part I)
I haven’t posted in a while. Gomen nasai! But in all honesty nothing has happened since I last posted, and it’s not likely that anything will happen for another month. But today I thought I’d go back in time a bit, to my initial application process. This might not be exactly how it goes for all eikaiwa, but it does seem like pretty standard stuff that you can expect to do yourself.
I applied online, and judging from the response that I received, that was a strange thing to do. It seems most applications are received at career fairs at universities or even from employment classifieds. But going directly to their website and applying online? They’ll always remember you for it!
The form requires you to fill out pretty standard stuff – it also asks for a resume with references, so have one prepared. Then it gets into the specifics. The eikaiwa like you to know what you’re getting into. There were many “Please read this information before continuing” messages, that explain things like salaries, class size and structures, what the eikaiwa will help you with and what you have to do on your own (and so on and so forth). These eikaiwa like to make sure that their butts are covered, so that no nasty legal preceedings can happen. They can always point and say “But this is what you signed up for, remember?”.
You’ll also get asked somewhat personal questions about why you want to work in Japan. Now, I don’t know about you, but is there ever a really innocent answer to that question? Sure, you can generalise and say “To experience Japanese culture” but I suspect what most people mean is that they’re otaku freaks (like myself) and want to live a real-life anime lifestyle, preferably in Akihabara. Or worse, they want some Japanese man/lady action because they can’t get any from any race at home. Similarly, “To try living in a foreign country” translates into “My parents/friends/ex-spouses want the money back that I loaned from them several years ago but I blew it on alcohol and gambling and need to get away”.
Cynical? Moi?
So, I filled up my application with gushes about Japan’s unique culture (although I kinda let on my fangirl side by mentioning “pop-culture” quite extensively) and history and how I’ve been learning Japanese for years (read: 5 months) and would like to try my hand at living there. Lots of lies, but like I previously mentioned, you’ll have to do quite a bit of lying in this job.
The embarrassing bit was when they questioned me further in the interview about the reasons I had put down for wanting to teach in Japan. I had to repeat the same bollocks face to face. Lucky for me, I do bollocks well.
Anyway, that was the written application wrap-up. I’ll talk about the interview process in the next post.
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