My Number: Welcome to Japan's new unified tax and benefit number system

Get ready folks, because come 2015, you will be the proud owner of brand spanking new My Number (マイナンバー) issued by the friendly folks at the Japanese Government. On May 24th, the three major parties in the National Diet finally got off their duffs and managed to put together a brand new law that gives everyone residing in Japan (foreigners included) a single unified identification number akin to a US Social Security number.

The so-called mai nannbaa-ho (マイナンバー法), or "My Number Act" (officially called the shakai hosho zei bango-ho 社会保障・税番号法 or "Social Benefits and Tax Number Act") will have far reaching effects on just about everyone who uses a government service (i.e. the whole country). Lets take a peek at what the law entails.

How to Ace an Interview: Basically, Just Stay Calm

Thanks to guest contributor OnlineMBA for today's post content:

3 Tips For Your [Job] Interview

"People who interview well seem to do so effortlessly. While the rest of us waste time studying single-use, canned answers we’ll probably never use in the actual interview, these lucky few come in and rattle off brilliant responses without any preparation at all.

Prospective employers can present these breezy interviewees with surprise panel interviews, hairy logic problems, or uncomfortable salary questions and they’ll handle each thoughtfully, without panicking. Now, most of us aren’t like that, but we can learn a few things from those that are.

One distinguishable difference between these candidates and the rest of us is that they come into an interview without expectations of how it will be conducted. They go with an aim to learn and discuss if they’d be a good fit for the organization, not to prove that they will be. So, instead of pouring over a laundry list of stay-cool tips the days and night before your interview, check out the latest video from OnlineMBA to learn three easy-to-remember tricks to both appear and actually be more relaxed during your interview."

Jinji Ido: Why Japanese teachers change schools all the time

If you work in a public school, then you may have noticed that, come the end of the year, many teachers are transferred to other locations. In big schools, it is not uncommon for a good portion of the staff to pack up at the end of the school year and, if you are lucky, you might just be able to get rid of that one teacher you just can't stand.

This part of a time honored tradition known as jinji ido (人事異動), often translated as "personnel transfer." Let's take a closer look...

Teacher Perks

For those of you who work in the public or private school system in Japan, you have likely noticed that many teachers are always (or at least seem to be) very, very busy. To make matters worse, public school teachers aren't exactly rolling in money when you look at their raw salaries. However, there are some very substantial job perks that almost make the long days and low pay worth it.

Claiming Unemployment Benefit in Japan

You may not be aware that it is possible to claim unemployment benefit for up to three months in Japan.

Here's an overview:

Changes in Japanese Job Interviews (2/2)

Among the frantic fanaticism of Dogs and Demons, Alex Kerr lays down a valid point: The pinnacle of the Japanese education system are students who are extremely good at memorizing and reciting data. So has the world of Japanese interviews long rewarded interviewees: Those who could flawlessly recite a 60-second 自己紹介 and 志望動機, answer predictable questions with predictable answers, and complete the motions of the process, got the job.

Changes in Japanese Job Interviews (1/2)

Job interviews are changing in Japan. That's the message every recent Japanese 就活 book seems to be trying to pound into the heads of its readers, and I personally agree with it. In my own experience, I could tell that companies weren't so interested in whether I had an encyclopedic knowledge of interview etiquette and rote-memorized answers to questions like "What is your greatest strength and weakness?" or "Do you consider yourself a rock or a sponge?" as they were with my actual capacity and drive to work in a way that promotes company growth (as opposed to mere sustainability.)

My wall-of-text take on the subject, objective, anecdotal, and fueled almost entirely by personal experience interviewing for jobs at big- and not-so-big-name firms in Tokyo and elsewhere, follows. But for readers who want the tl;dr, here it is: job interviews at Japanese companies, in Japan, for Japanese and foreign applicants alike, are growing more and more alike their Western counterparts.

Q&A: Changing Jobs

How old is too old to be looking for new work? Traditional Japanese thinking says that people should only be hired for a job once, right after they complete their education, and the company and employee should loyally support each other until retirement. It doesn't always work that way, but Chiebukuro is here to tell you how old's too old when you're thinking about changing jobs.

Being an ALT #18: What to Keep in Your Desk

Over time teaching I've accumulated a lot of stuff in my desk. Most of it is papers, textbook samples, student grades, past exams, articles and publications about English, and Japanese learning resources. But there are a few odds and ends around me that I probably didn't expect I'd use with such regularity before I got into the job.

Here are a few of the things that maybe not everyone associates with teaching or lesson planning, but which I now find essential or which have helped me out in tight situations:

Maggie Sensei's Job Hunting Vocab

It's been a while since we wrote about job hunting here, although it always seems a continuing point of consternation for some number of our readers. If you're like me, anyway, when you're out of a job or nearing the end of a contract, finding a new one is always on the mind.

English Language Newspapers

There are several Japanese papers available in English, although they are often supplemented with articles from other English-speaking countries' newspapers. Some are also aimed more at Japanese people practicing English than English readers. This blog will give an overview of the most popular print and eNewspapers available.

Maternity Leave in Japan

Worried about not being able to have kids with your "part-time" English teaching job? Well, I've got some news for you which I hope will make you as happy as it made me.

Being an ALT #10: More School Hopping

In the last installment of our Being an ALT series, we discussed how some ALT jobs cover more than one school and how hopping between schools can affect your experience as a teacher in Japan. This time we'll continue that discussion and look particularly at how an ALT's time is split between multiple schools and the ways that can increase or decrease your workload.

Being an ALT #9: Hopping Between Schools

In some ALT positions, you will teach at not just one school, but instead rotate through a set of assigned schools. This is especially common among junior high school and elementary school ALTs, but even high school ALTs may find themselves covering a few small, rural high schools or trucking out to a special needs school once every couple weeks.

This game of musical workplaces can be good or bad, depending on your preferences. Over our next two Being an ALT posts, we'll discuss some of the pros and cons of this arrangement. First, we'll look at some of the interpersonal impacts of having more schools to visit, and next time we'll consider scheduling issues it might provoke. If you're considering a move to a multi-school job, we hope these posts will provide you some food for thought.

Japanese Ability to be Linked to Visa Extensions?

This article is a bit dated, but I only stumbled across it fairly recently: In May of 2008, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs hinted in a press conference that it would like to start taking Japanese language ability into consideration when issuing visas to or renewing landing permissions for foreign residents.

(A Youtube video of the press conference is also available; there's no particular variation between it and the written record, but of additional interest on Youtube are the scathing comments in Japanese about former Minister of Foreign Affairs Masahiko Komura and his "antinational" proposals.) 

Job Spotlight: High School ALT Spots Across Nagano Ken

For the last two years, the Nagano Board of Education has listed direct hire ALT positions at high schools across the prefecture. These are cream-of-the-crop jobs, on par with the JET Program in terms of salary and support.

The jobs were first created as Nagano began to pull away from the JET Program, and they are often occupied by 5-year JETs who weren't quite ready to go home. But, the positions are open for anyone to apply.

However, because the package is nice and there is no shortage of applicants each year, the qualifications are steep. For starters, you need to be in Japan and have a valid landing permission for work.

Job Spotlight: www.top-us.com

TOP is a recruitment consultant that specializes in Japanese-English bilingual job positions with (usually large) Japanese firms. They advertise positions both within Japan and across the U.S., and they have branches in Tokyo as well as 5 major U.S. cities. Their listings also include some English- or Japanese-language-only jobs.

Job Spotlight: ALT Spot in Houfu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture

Last year around this time, Houfu City in Yamaguchi Prefecture advertised two direct-hire ALT positions with a competitive remuneration package.


If you're looking for specific figures about ALT working conditions, or if you're looking for a direct-hire gig around Yamaguchi to apply for, here's the lowdown and the link to watch over the next couple weeks:

Being an ALT #5: Getting Drunk on Duty (The Enkai)

All the drunken work party antics you've seen in Japanese TV shows and movies are true. The enkai in Japan is a sacred event where work colleagues get completely hammered as a semi-compulsory part of the job.

On special days, like big sports-events or opening/closing-ceremonies at school, you'll be invited to join the majority of your co-workers for an enormous meal and massive piss-up. Also, when a colleague gets married, or occasionally when they have a child, win the lottery, etc., be prepared to give your liver a bashing.

It won't be cheap, but if you treat it right it will be the gift that keeps on giving. It can also be a quite surreal experience.

Job Spotlight: How to Get a Gaijinpot Job

Although I think there are other, better resources available for job searching, the well-trodden sites of the Internet are still worth a look; they are often well designed and because of their popularity, new jobs appear on them almost every day.

Today we're going to take a look at Gaijinpot Jobs.

(But, this advice is just as effective at other big job-listing sites, too.)

Most readers have already heard of Gaijinpot Jobs, so I'll keep the site description short: You create a profile on the site, write and save resumes, browse jobs, and send resumes with cover letters. Most of the jobs listed on the site are ESL teaching gigs, from small local schools to corporate giants like Interac. And Gaijinpot's ability to store your resumes means you can apply for a load of jobs with very little effort.

And that right there is what I want to focus on.

Think about it: If you can save one resume and one cover letter and send those off to a dozen companies in five minutes, so can everyone else. So, if you want to get in for an interview, the name of the game at Gaijinpot is quality and speed. Read on...