The Japanese University Workplace

Some people have asked me about working in a Japanese university and what that entails. Here is a description of the kinds of working conditions you can expect in a Japanese-university workplace.

Part-time Work
Working part-time at a university in Japan is great. If you can teach more than 8 koma (90 min) a week, your pay is pretty good for not much work and little to no responsibility. The average pay for 1 koma is about 10000yen, or somewhere around 100 USD or 75 Euros. If you have at least eight of those a week, that makes for a weekly pay of 80000 yen for 12 hours of (official) at the school work. Of course there is always class prep and marking and you won't be paid for that as those hours are included in your 10000yen per koma. This puts you in an annual income of just under 4 million yen per year, which is very decent pay for Japan.

The downsides to working part-time are that you have no input into any changes in your department, nor will you generally even be consulted by the full-time teachers unless you have a close working relationship with them. This is more disadvantageous for some people than others. Some individuals really care about improving the level of education at the school, and some people care mostly for their own students. If you are the kind of person who likes to make a difference in your workplace, part-time work might be tough for you.

Finally, you don't get any benefits, bonuses, research money, and you can't apply for most grants. You will probably not have a private office, and your computer/printer may be ancient. However, the biggest negatives are that your salary will never increase and you have no job security.

Full-time Work
Just like part-time work at a university, full-time work is a mixed bag of good and bad points. The main negative is pay vs. responsibilities and work hours. You will often start off making less than a part-timer would with a lot more responsibility. You will work at least 40 hours a week. Most teachers have on average 6-7 classes per week with language teachers often having more. Beware of any institution that has you teaching more than 12 classes per week, this is an unfair course load.

The average starting salary for a full-time university teacher varies so widely it is hard to give accurate numbers. It can be as little as 250000 (equivalent to a cram school teacher), or up to 480000 yen per month. Private schools will tend to pay less than public schools and lower-ranking schools (i.e. not famous or distinguished academically) will pay even less. However, these low-ranking schools are good entry jobs and may be more lenient in their hiring practices. Maximum salaries also vary with each institution.

Full-time university teachers get all standard benefits offered including health insurance, sick leave and holidays. Your salary will increase over time and most universities give you bonuses twice yearly. Also, you may have much greater job security usually with the possibility of tenure, although this depends on your institution and if they employ discriminatory-hiring practices for foreign employees. You will often get a yearly amount of money to spend on research and trips to conferences. You will also often get subsidised housing, dependent allowance, as well as a private office.

A big difference between full-time and part-time teachers is the number of responsibilities you will have. In additional to classes, full-time teachers are in charge of committees, research rooms, and in particular, seminar students. Seminar students are students that choose to engage in research with you for the full term of their 4 years at the university and ultimately, you are often responsible for helping find employment for them when they graduate. (Obviously a big responsibility.) You may be responsible for giving intensive courses during the summer months and also for administering test on weekends. You will have to help out during open campuses, festivals, and so on. You can expect to work during all school holidays. The students may not be in class, but this does not mean vacation for you.

Working at a Japanese university is a prestigious job with a lot of respect and better than average pay. Therefore, your co-workers will generally be very intelligent and well-educated. It is a great work if you can get it, less busy than working as a office worker, and generally with a better working environment.

How to Get a University Teaching Position in Japan in Five (not-so-easy) Steps!

In my years of living and teaching in Japan, I've come across quite a few people who are trying to get teaching jobs at a university in Japan. Many of those teachers are good at their jobs, and many of them have impressive credentials; some even had PhDs. They often ask me how I have managed to get two university jobs, one full-time having only a bachlor's degree. Although having a master's or a phd is a good start, it won't necessarily get you an interview. So, if you are thinking of trying to get a university job, or if you have been trying unsuccessfully, this post is for you.

Step 1 - Learn Japanese
This may sound obvious, but unlike JET or a conversation school, a university is not geared towards hiring foreigners and they probably won't have an English-speaking supervisor to help you out. Bothering your rediculously busy co-workers to help you with your administrative crap is not going to endear you to them. Also, they won't be able to help you much at faculty and other meetings. You should be able to hold your own in conversations about pension, insurance, curriculum, student affairs, etc. Minimum level for this would be JLPT N3, preferrably lower N2. Reading and writing kanji is less important than being able to speak and understand. I repeat, you pretty much NEED to speak Japanese well.

Step 2 - Get Published
Most universities require you to have a minimum of 3 publications for a full-time position. Even for a part-time position, having something of yours published, anything really, is often required. So, if you have a chance to put something down in writing that will get published in a journal, book, magazine, newspaper, DO IT!!! Ideally, get published in an academic publication, but in my experience, the university staff mainly want to check their boxes with respect to applicants and if you can get that "I have published something" box checked, then you will have an easier time getting an interview, and hopefully landing the position.

Also, think back to any time you were published at school, did you submit a poem or article for the school newspaper? Have you ever won a writing competition? Every little bit helps. If you have nothing, I would suggest going to the local newspaper in your town and asking them if you could write an article for them (in Japanese of course). However, since academic publications are best, choose an area of educational interest, write something well-researched, and try to get published.

Step 3 - Get a part-time position to gain experience and save money
Almost every full-time job will require that you already have at least 2 years of teaching experience at the university level. In order to obtain this, you will need to settle for working part-time for 2~3 years. On the plus side, part-time often pays almost as well as full-time depending on how many koma (classes) you get. On the down side, it's hard to get a visa if you aren't working many hours. You may need to suppliment your part-time university work with part-time cram school or conversation-school work. If you cannot do that, working full-time teaching English to adults is the next best thing.

Save up money because you may have to travel to interviews in person. Some universities will be able to conduct interviews via video conferencing software like Skype, but most won't. Flying around for interviews can get VERY expensive, VERY quickly so be prepared.

Step 4 - Get a Master's Degree
If you don't already have at least a Master's degree, use the time you are working part-time to gain experience as time to get your Master's degree online. Yes, it's expensive, but without it you will have one hell of a time getting a full-time position. There are many online programs, some of them are total scams, so my advice to you is to make sure you get a degree from a university that also has on-site students. (i.e. students who are studying on the school grounds.) A Master's degree in English literature, ESL, and lingustics are the most sought after, but generally speaking, having any Master's degree will be sufficient for most jobs.

Step 5 - Apply, Apply, Apply (or Delay Equals Failure) A Novel By Job Hunter
Send your resumes to every and any job you can. My rule of thumb is this, if you are missing out on one criterion, apply anyway. If you are missing out on two criteria, apply if the job is particularly suited to you in some respect. More than three criteria? Forget it. You may have to send out hundreds of resumes and since this is Japan, you will have to send them by mail (costs $). Also, your resumes will often have to be in Japanese. Be prepared for this by downloading a template and asking a Japanese person to help you if you need kanji assistance.

You will need to tailor your cover letters so often you will have ten versions or more. You will have several different resumes because often universities will have their own resume template requiring you to constanly have to imput the same information over and over in different formats. You will want to die, kill HR people, and you will have to sacrifice a TON of your time, but without this constant effort, you will not succeed in finding a job.

Most job advertisements for April come out in September and resumes are usually considered in the order they are submitted, so if you are a procrastinator, prepare to be rejected. In particular, if you see an ideal job posting, jump on that opportunity asap.

Other points suggested by web-buddies are:
*Membership in an association helps. JALT is a good place to start.
*Avoid emphasizing your eikaiwa (English conversation school) background if you have one. These kinds of jobs have a (often underservedly imo) bad rep in Japan.

Here are the best sites to find university level teaching jobs in Japan. Good luck to you!
jrecin.jst.go.jp/index_e.html‎
jalt-publications.org/tlt/departments/job-info-centre/jobs