How much$$ should I bring, consensus?
 

Hello, I am trying to plan my foray into teaching Engllish in Japan next Spring and in researching different forums and articles I have come up against a conundrum of sorts.

If I am coming without securing a contract in advance, how much money should I come with in reserve? Some say $2000 USD and others say $5000, I even had a couple posts saying $10k or more....can we come together and find some consensus on this?

Let's say that I am fine with living/working in Tokyo/another big city, what is a smart, practical amount to have with me when I arrive(maybe not "with me" for all you literalists out there, perhaps in a bank account somewhere where I have access to it):)

Appreciate your assistancehttp://www.japanforum.com/forum/images/smilies/v.gif

P.S. I am a single male. Not interested in living at all extravagantly/partying constantly.

I guess it depends how long you are willing to look. I would think you will need at least $2000 a month, maybe more depending on where you are looking.

Why are you not trying to secure a teaching job before you go? This is actually the way most people do it, and there is a lot more security this way.

Well, many say you have less control over where you end up living/working if you secure employment beforehand. Basically, you are in a better position to sniff out the best situation for yourself if you go to Japan. Also, I'm not sure how easy it is to secure a job from the country I am currently residing in. It seems that many companies offering to hire outside of Japan still require an interview with staff in the country you reside in before securing the contract. I have a friend(albeit not a close friend) who is currently teaching English in Japan who when I asked him said "just come here!" I have also read several articles at sites like Transitions Abroad that said similar things.

What sort of control are you looking for?

Are you a college graduate and native speaker? If so take a number among the hundreds and thousands trying to do the exact same thing in Tokyo and Osaka.

Yes, you are right. They usually don't fly people into Japan for an interview. You would have to interview in your home country. Why would this be a problem?

If spending several thousands of dollars with the risk that you may not find employment is OK, then I say go for it. It is far from guaranteed that you will find employment.

Hmmmm.. if you are on your own I can imagine it would be tough... I would imagine $2000 a month to live off of would be safe. Including the cost of your capsule hotel (or I imagine there are cheaper places than that.. never researched it though) Plan on at LEAST $300 month for food since I imagine you will not be cooking, rather you will be living off conbini stuff and eating out. Plus add in all your visits to public baths, internet cafes, prepaid cell phone etc.. I would imagine you may be able to find a part time gig pretty easily but your salary, maybe even just hourly pay, will be pretty low and not enough to support you.

But I think people are getting the $5000 plus number from the fact that once you get a job (if you can find one) you will probably need to have a spare $2000-5000 cash to pay for key money, and a deposit (I would expect this amount especially if you live in Tokyo.. or another big city) not to mention to get your visa status changed I believe you will have to leave Japan for a day (probably fly to Korea). So you will need to have money set aside for that little trip. So.. to bum around Japan and look for a job for a month (ie not traveling very much though) you will probably need about $2000, but once you try to get set up especially in a big city... I would have at least an extra $3000 set aside on top of the $2000, which means $5000 mininum would be my recommendation just to be safe.

@MMM
by actually meeting the people who will hire you, you can be a bit more sure that they are trustworthy and that you might enjoy(or at leat not detest) working for/with them. You can visit the proposed workplace, get a feel for the comany/school that you can't get from e-mails. You don't think this is valuable?
As far as the interview goes, I currently live on the island of Trinidad. Most of the companies I've seen basically seem to recruit from US, Canada, or UK. If I have to travel to one of these to interview it's an extra expense and hassle.
the cost is worth it if I am convinced that the extra security is worth it but I have heard alot of contradictory opinions on how tough it is to secure a job in Japan. Many make it sound easy(like my friend and aforementioned articles read) and then others like yourself make it sound as if it's quite difficult. Yes I am college educated and a native English speaker. Also I was planning on e-mailing applications/resumes for a couple of weeks before arriving to set up interviews in advance.

If you interview with a reputable company, there is no need to worry about being scammed. I worked for JET, and they set up housing, pay for the plane ticket, etc.

But you are right, being from Trinidad is not helpful for landing an English speaking job. Are you from Trinidad or just live there?

If you visit Japan for 90 days as a tourist, technically you cannot be hired for work. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but it just makes things tricky.

I am not going to say it is easy or it is hard to find a job this way...if you find one in a week then it wasn't hard, right? But what I am saying is that it is risky, and it not the way the majority of teachers go out there and do it.

Duly noted MMM, your input is much appreciated:) I absolutely hear where you're coming from.
I would love to hear from more people though, as it is a consensus I was looking for. Anyone out there who didn't secure a contract in advance have an opinion?

Moving to Japan to teach is a big step. Work is not all that hard to find for experienced/qualified teachers, but there is less "entry-level" work available than there used to be.

Unless you are coming from a country with a working holiday visa agreement with Japan, you will have to come with a tourist visa, which is only good for 90 days. You would need to bring enough money to last you for that time. You can probably find an temporary apartment for $600-$700 per month, and then you'll need to add food and transportation expenses to that, which would be approximately $15 per day.

Remember that the application/interview/hiring/sponsorship process takes time, if you don't find a job within the first 4 to 6 after you arrive, you may be forced to leave the country and return with a fresh visa.

There are many schools who are willing to hire fresh people, but some of these schools are not the best places to work for. There are plenty of horror stories about schools which fail to pay overtime (generally anything over 29.5 hours per week), and ripping you off out of vacation time (you are entitled to 10 days vacation after your first 6 months), etc. If you are offered an interview at a school, do a Google search and make sure that they are reputable.

And, of course, you must meet the basics required to get a work visa as a teacher, which means you are a native English speaker who has a 4 year college degree, or 3 consecutive and verifiable years of teaching experience.

I didn't come to Japan until I had received a firm offer of employment. Traveling across the US for interviews was expensive and time-consuming, but it was still less expensive than the cost of a round-trip ticket to Japan.

+1

I was going to say everything Sangetsu already did. I will add, that even if you do come, job in hand, you still need money until you're paid after your first month! I had a job, and I came with $2000. I was already experienced, which made getting offers much easier, and now that I know more about the system in Japan, I could have probably gotten one anywhere I wanted, but it would have taken more time and more money. I'd say $5000 is probably a good number given three months of tourist visa status. That's just under what you'd be making salary wise, and will allow you to stay in a guest house, get food, travel, and NETWORK (yes, this involves socialising, and likely alcohol/food/etc). If you just bring enough for rent and food, but none for play, you'll actually not only be driving yourself insane with cabin fever, you will also miss many possible opportunities to learn about employment because you're stuck at home trying to send a dozen resumes off to faceless hiring managers all day.

Thanks 2 everyone for their input, it's all very helpful:)
So what about the whole visa thing, will I or won't I have to fly to Korea if I come on a tourist visa and get sponsored for a work visa? I've read a lot of conflicting things about this as well.

It all depends on how soon you can find a job. It can take weeks for a work visa to be processed, and if it isn't ready before your tourist visa expires, you will have to leave the country and return with a new tourist visa.

In the past people used to take the quick ferry to Korea when their visas were about to expire, spend a couple days in Korea, and then return to Japan and get a fresh tourist visa. But Japanese immigration has cracking down on that practice. In most cases you will probably be given a second visa, but it's not a sure thing, and, if you don't find a job within the second 90 day period, you probably won't be able to get a third visa. A lot also depends on which country you are from. If you are from America, the UK, Australia, or Canada, you'll probably have no trouble getting a second (or even third) visa. If you are from anywhere else, you may not be so lucky.

To get a work visa, you must be hired by a school/company. They'll provide you with a sponsorship form which they have signed, along with a work contract which is usually for 1 year. You will take this paperwork, an original copy of your university diploma, along with your passport, and 2 pictures of yourself to the immigration office in whichever prefecture you are living. If the paperwork is in order, you will pay a fee, and the immigration officer will affix a stamp in your passport which says that your work visa is being processed. You'll fill out a post card with your name and address on it. When your visa is complete, the postcard will be mailed to you, take it back to the immigration office and collect your visa.

If you are hired from overseas the process is much easier. Some schools will interview you by telephone, so you will not need to travel. If they hire you, they will mail you the forms to fill out. Fill them out and send them back. After a few weeks, they will return your passport with a certificate of eligibility. You will then take (or send) your passport and COE to your nearest Japanese consulate or embassy, and they will make the visa for you. When you land in Japan, a 1 year stamp will be affixed to your passport.

Here's another question:) (BTW I love the internet, this is so cool that I can ask these from thousands of miles away and people actually answer them! Thank you Al Gore, lol)
So if Tokyo is such a saturated market, and since I unfortunately don't know s**t about most other cities/areas in Japan, any suggestions on where I might like to live and work besides Tokyo? Are there areas within easy traveling distance to Tokyo where the market is better? Are there other metropolitan areas that teachers consider a good second choice? I realize that opinions will differ on these matters, and that Tokyo is Tokyo and nowhere else is really like it. Just fishing to hear people's thoughts on the matter.

You also used to be able to wait for your COE inside the country, and then get your tourist visa changed. I had an easy time getting three consecutive tourist visas, but immigration decided two weeks before I got my COE, that I could no longer do the change. So I ended up going to Korea to have it switched. Now this isn't even possible at all. Everyone who has come in after my as had to follow the the method above in the last paragraph. No more hanging out in Japan to do the paperwork. You must arrive, the first time, with a visa.

Hold on now. Are you saying that no one with a tourist visa can get a job anymore? You have to set it up from abroad and come with a work visa? This seems like a very big change, you would think I would have read it soemwhere else in some of these forums.

No. Not exactly what I'm saying. Searching for a job while on a tourist visa is, and technically always was, a violation of your landing permit agreement. If you had said you were looking for a job, as opposed to tourism, you would have been denied entry.

What I am saying is that now, MOFA will not send your COE to your company until you have established a plan to exit the country. Two years ago, you used to be able to get your COE, take it to immigration and get your tourist visa changed to a work visa. Not only can you no longer do this, but you technically can no longer wait inside Japan for your COE and then go to Korea or Taiwan to pick up your visa and come back, which is what I did, as I moved to Japan after the job offer, but before the paperwork was complete. If the Ministry of Foreign Affairs knows you're in Japan, they will not send the COE. They might not know, because immigration is Ministry of Justice, and the two don't always coordinate, so people slip through all the time. Still, it is not recommended you wait for your COE inside of Japan. It might not get to you.

You might want to save even more money to go take a trip to Taiwan or Korea and have your company send the COE to your hotel room. Then you go straight to the consulate, get the visa, and go back to Japan.

People do all sorts of illegal or against-policy decisions and they don't get caught. I did things I shouldn't have, and I did enough research to know the risk was manageable. However, with the restrictions that were added after my arrival, I am not so sure I would have done the same thing.

Okay, you still have me a bit baffled, which may be more a reflection of the crazy way things are done in bureaucracies like this than anything.
So let's say I came to Japan on a tourist visa and found a job while there. How could I possibly get myself a work visa at that point? Or could I?