I have worked a lot of hard jobs in my life, and working at Nova doesn’t even enter the top 5.

Let’s set a few things straight:
1. At Nova, you don’t have to work overtime if you don’t want to. You can run out the door at 3 minutes after that lesson bell (and most people do).
2. The pay is comparable to alot of young business men in Tokyo. I am a recruiter now and i know the salary of most professionals in the IT market.
3. Most of the complainers were the ‘disgruntled’ teachers and now that I am in the recruitment industry, I can see that no matter where you go, there will always be whiners that demand all kinds of things that they feel is their right to have. English teaching is a job, and it is not supposed to be a holiday. If you want to have fun, go get drunk, go to the beach, or do what you want to do on your days off.
4. Days off: You can ’swap’ days off with other teachers giving you a long weekend if you like. You get a good amound of paid holidays (and unpaid if you ask) to take anytime you like. This is much more flexible that most companies in Japan. I know. I hear from engineers and sales people in Japan that work more hours in one day that most ESL teachers work in a week. And without OT pay.

I am an ex-Nova teacher and I don’t think it was bad at all.

I must say, though, that the pay is much better in recruitment. But to do this job, you have to be dedicated and passionate about hitting numbers and pushing yourself hard. You have to be good in the face of stress; keep your head down and work hard.

That’s my 2 cents.

Glendon

I had acutally applied for NOVA a while back cause it was listed in the co op program within my university. I was actually looking to look up about how their interview process might have went and/or any tips

Do you think you can email me or something? I never realized or saw NOVA as the kind of company you have described and now I’m very curious as to the on-goings of it.

Reading your entry really hits this home for me. It’s good to know that what I’ve been hearing for several years isn’t just the rumour mill doing overtime.

I’d never recommend to anyone that they work for NOVA. If they’re considering it, I’ll make sure they read this.

Thanks for the entry!

-BG

There are similar issues; I’m often hassled by the management, who are in complete denial about the reality of their teachers. They seem to think all teachers come to their company to stay, when in fact, most finish up the year and go back home. AEON should accept this and cope, instead of encouraging teachers to lie to headquarters about the reasons they came to Japan (i.e. “I came to teach, not to learn about Japan” – so you don’t come off as curious human being with feelings and interests in your reviews)

Similar problems with office supplies; I’ve been hassled about using necessary tape and normal paper to prepare classroom materials.

But, like you said, what gets to me is the corporate nature – selling students materials they don’t need after counseling sessions designed to encourage the sale, entire campaigns devoted to profit and not students’ needs, weekly meetings going over trivial figures foreign teachers have no control over…

But the students are good. They’re human, and they keep me going. If it weren’t for them, I would have quit already.