![\"15151346_10211249570413499_933684163_n\"](\"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/files\/2016\/11\/15151346_10211249570413499_933684163_n-228x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Erica’s “Recruit” Photo<\/p>\n3) At Gaba the interview was held in English and was very similar to all interviews I have ever had in America. But we did have to complete a written test which checks our lesson planning skills as well as spelling and grammar. At my current job I had two interviews, one in English and one in Japanese. The English interview consisted of questions about why I wanted the job and my educational experience. The Japanese interview included questions about how long I wanted to stay in Japan, what are my future plans as far as work after marriage, I was asked why I prefer “hoikuen” childcare over “yochien” kindergarten, and asked to give a general self-appeal statement.<\/p>\n
4) The placement was very easy,and the company paid for my transport for interviews as well as moving expenses from Nagoya to Tokyo. They also paid a housing allowance while I was living alone.<\/span><\/p>\n5) In my first job I was an “itaku gyomu” contracted employee. The plus side was I could make own schedule any time during business hours. The down side is that I only got paid when students booked my lessons, also there is no paid sick leave, etc. You get paid when you work<\/span>. Being technically self employed can have pros and cons as far as taxes are concerned too. I was required to wear a suit at all times and my students ranged from teenagers to seniors, but primarily high level business men. With my current job I work at the main office one day a week. The other 4 days I am going from school to school, teaching at 2 schools per day. I wear a company t-shirt and sports wear inside the schools. I am required to keep my hair tied back and am not allowed to wear accessories or nail polish. I am required to speak English only in front of the children but the children speak Japanese to me so conversational level Japanese is a must. I also create the curriculum for the English program, write the monthly newsletter to parents and conduct a lot of meetings. For this part of my job business level Japanese plus knowledge of industry terms in required. Because I have a teaching shift I don’t work overtime most days, but when I work at the main office I usually stay late. Its normal to work until about 8pm. There are also occasionally recruiting events and events related to the company farm on weekends, which I get paid overtime to work.<\/p>\n6) I really enjoy working with Japanese people! Because I am always traveling from school to school I don’t have set “coworkers”. So I never have to join hours social events. Our company doesn’t seem to have much of an after hour obligation anyway. A lot of people are surprised that I can speak Japan and I often get asked the same questions again and again, but that’s to be expected I guess. In general everyone is very kind and I haven’t had any big culture shocks or anything.<\/p>\n
7) I have a few tips for anyone who wants to work in Japan. If you plan to stay in Japan long term try to work as a \u6b63\u793e\u54e1 or permanent employee. Foreigners are sometimes seen as a commodity. A lot of foreigners come and go and are easily replaced. I got a teaching license in Japan to make myself valuable as an employee. Make sure you don’t wear too much perfume or cologne and keep up with general hygiene. I’ve seen a lot of foreigners who are not up to Japanese hygiene standards. Study \u656c\u8a9e! You don’t always have to be a polite speech perfectionist but saying a little keigo at the right time goes a long way! Keep smiling! I went through a lot of tough times where I made mistakes and was under a lot of pressure but a lot of people told me that my smile saved the day. It really makes a difference!<\/p>\n
Erica-san is a super lady with KARATE skills, and she passed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 1 in 2014.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1) My name is Erica Williams. I’m 33 years old and grew up in Burlington, Vermont. I was always interested in Japanese culture such as Bonsai, J-pop, pottery, and animation. I started to practice Karate in my early twenties which led me to visit Japan in 2010. In order to prepare for that trip I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":357,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106587,106582],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japanese-corporation","category-teaching-english-in-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/357"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":278,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions\/278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"15139342_10211249570773508_543473980_n\"](\"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/files\/2016\/11\/15139342_10211249570773508_543473980_n.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a0 Graduation Photo<\/p>\n