Employment

Yesterday, I was given a provisional offer of employment. (To my understanding, the provisional part was that I had the job providing the Japanese government does not reject my Visa application). The company is Heart English School and I will be in either Mito City or Yonezawa City. They said they would get back to me on which sometime this week or early next week at the latest.

Mito City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Kanto Region

View Larger Map

Yonezawa City, Yamagata Prefecture, Tohoku Region

View Larger Map

In either case, I would be in a middle school as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT). I will post again when details have been more finalized, but in short, I have found a job that will support my Visa, extending my stay in Japan beyond this November. More on this later.

Interviews and Nagoya

Well, unfortunately the job offer didn’t work out as I had hoped. It turns out that the Board of Education did not choose the Unitas candidate, so there was no opening for me at Unitas after all. The worst part of that situation was definitely being stuck in limbo not knowing if I should be continuing to apply for jobs while I was waiting to hear if Untias had an position for me or not.

Since last week when I found out, I've had two interviews, one over the phone and on in person, in Ibaraki and Kanagawa prefectures respectively. (Both prefectures border Tokyo. Ibaraki is to the northeast and Kanagawa is to the southwest. Yokohama is in Kanagawa, but farther south than this place I applied to). The phone interview was on Friday morning and I am still waiting to hear back from them. The in person interview was interesting though. The school is called Kokusai Gaigakko School and the interview was a group interview and informational session. The other three applicants were a dancer from Brooklyn, a former accountant from Melbourne, and a Lithuanian who spent his adolescence in Queens and his adult life in different countries around Europe and most recently worked for an international organization charged with catching people in the act of illegal fishing. It was a really interesting group of people and an odd experience to say the least. Unfortunately, that one didn't pan out. We were told that if we hadn't heard back from them by Saturday then we were not being offered the position, and I still haven't heard from them. Again though, still waiting to hear back on the Friday interview. Hopefully I'll get an email one way or the other today.

I spent last weekend visiting Amelia in Nagoya. I got to meet a large number of her friends who were having a large get together on Saturday evening, which we followed with Karaoke. The next day, I accompanied Amelia to her boss's wedding reception, which was more like an American wedding reception that I would have expected. That is, of course, that it was more like an American wedding reception until two of the staff members at the ECC branch that the bride runs did a choreographed number dressed in schoolgirl outfits. I regretted not having my camera, but Amelia said she would probably put that on her blog, so hopefully that will be coming soon.

I suppose that's all for now. I just sent another large batch of applications out, so I should hear on those in the next couple of days. Hopefully I'll have good news.

Until next time.

A Job Offer...Sort Of...

Well there's been a sort of breakthrough on the employment front. About a month ago I had a phone interview with a company in Kofu called Unitas. After not hearing from them for a week after that I emailed them to be told that the person who had interviewed me had finished their contract and left the country. I've been emailing them on and off over the past month without really hearing much back, so I called them this past Monday to see what I could find out. They asked if I wanted to interview on Tuesday, so the next day I took the train two stops west and found their office.

It went fairly well and about half way through the woman doing the interview said the principal of the conversation school was going to come in and sit in on the interview. No sooner had she said it than he came in. They spoke to each other in Japanese for a while, but were speaking too quickly for me to really understand everything. However, I did get the impression that they liked me but might not actually be able to hire anyone new. It turned out that the Board of Education here is looking for an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) for one of the public schools and they asked Unitas to find someone so they requested that I come back on Thursday and teach a demo lesson to see if they wanted me for that. The lesson was to be for seven or eight year old kids, be 20 minutes long, and focus on colors but also use animals.

It went pretty well. After I finished the three people I presented it to began to discuss me in front of me in Japanese. The first words said after it was over were tanoshi sensei which means fun teacher, but again it was too fast for me to really follow all of it. However, it was clear from what I could make out that they liked me but probably wouldn't have a spot for me. No sooner had I gotten back before I received a call saying that they wanted to hire me, but it turned out not to be as straightforward as they had made it sound. After I got back to their office they told me that the Board of Education had made the offer to several companies in the region and they had all put candidates forward. Unitas doesn't want me for the ALT position but they did offer me the job of the person they put forward should he or she be selected.

So on the up side, I received my first job offer today. On the down side, the job I was offered may or may not actually be available. The BoE makes its decision on the 13th, so I should know around then.

Guess that's all for now.