An Act of Desperation
"Are you alive? Do you have a valid visa? You're hired."
various hiring managers
*For more posts similar to this one, see General Working Conditions
This is an addendum to my previous post A Dozen Englishes Please.
OK, what we have here is a very simple situation. Like I wrote in A Dozen Englishes Please, the Boards of Education accept bids from companies providing English teachers to their schools approximately 2 to 3 weeks before school starts. The problem with this formula is that NO company can possibly have enough teachers hired at the time the bids are accepted. The companies simply never know exactly how many teachers they will need, so it's impossible for them to prepare properly.
So, what the companies are forced to do is very simple. First, they immediately scour their databases looking for anyone who they have prescreened in the past and send out a blanket email.
Now, I've included a real live email that I received a few months ago in this post to help explain:
Dear all,
My name is (Japanese person) from (X company) and
we were in contact before.
We are currently looking for qualified native English instructors.
The positions that are opening now are both a full time and
as well as a part time.
If any of you are interested, please do let me know!
Thank you.
Best regards,
(Japanese person)
(X company)
The next step for the company is to wait for zombie teachers to take the bait and reply. After that, the company will get back to the zombie teachers alarmingly quickly and try to set up a Skype interview.
Recently, the schools have been moving to Skype "interviews" because they can run through them faster and they can save money on transportation costs (good thing about Japan is that the company always pays for your transportation costs, or at least most of them).
The jist of the "interview" is simply to confirm that zombie teachers are alive, willing and able to work for whatever crappy contract they have available. If you can show up, you are hired. Since only zombie teachers (who are currently unemployed and just as desperate to find a gig as the company is to fill them) answer the email in the first place, the company will hire on the spot.
In case you are wondering.....Yes, I've been .... zombie teacher. It's a very common way to get an English teaching job in Japan these days. And when that contract is up, the cycle starts all over again.
Another thing the companies do to fill the open positions has to do with ...... The Non-Native Speaker. I'll save that for another day.
As always, if you have anything to add, let me know!
Do you have a question about Japan or a topic that you are interested in that you haven't found on this blog? If so, please tell me about it in a comment. I will get a post up about it as soon as possible. Thanks for reading!!
Dear all,
My name is (Japanese person) from (X company) and
we were in contact before.
We are currently looking for qualified native English instructors.
The positions that are opening now are both a full time and
as well as a part time.
If any of you are interested, please do let me know!
Thank you.
Best regards,
(Japanese person)
(X company)
The next step for the company is to wait for zombie teachers to take the bait and reply. After that, the company will get back to the zombie teachers alarmingly quickly and try to set up a Skype interview.
Recently, the schools have been moving to Skype "interviews" because they can run through them faster and they can save money on transportation costs (good thing about Japan is that the company always pays for your transportation costs, or at least most of them).
The jist of the "interview" is simply to confirm that zombie teachers are alive, willing and able to work for whatever crappy contract they have available. If you can show up, you are hired. Since only zombie teachers (who are currently unemployed and just as desperate to find a gig as the company is to fill them) answer the email in the first place, the company will hire on the spot.
The symbiosis is complete -- かんぺきです！
In case you are wondering.....Yes, I've been .... zombie teacher. It's a very common way to get an English teaching job in Japan these days. And when that contract is up, the cycle starts all over again.
Another thing the companies do to fill the open positions has to do with ...... The Non-Native Speaker. I'll save that for another day.
As always, if you have anything to add, let me know!
Do you have a question about Japan or a topic that you are interested in that you haven't found on this blog? If so, please tell me about it in a comment. I will get a post up about it as soon as possible. Thanks for reading!!
