But honestly to give you the full tea on that job, like honestly I didn't like it, I didn't really like it, at all.
Hey guys, it's Mikan and today I was supposed to upload a more interesting video,
but guess what happened! I’m just so unlucky, like honestly just so unlucky.
I'd literally spent a week straight
editing this video that turned out to be literally 40 minutes straight,
And as soon as I exported, it my computer crashed and burned! Not literally, but it's pretty dead now.
It has been years and years that I've had that computer though, so
I feel like it's time for an upgrade. I would have preferred it not tonight but..
What can you do?? So bare with me!
Today I decided to, instead, make a little bit more of a simple, sit-down, talk video because that's one that I can edit more quickly,
because now I have to borrow my boyfriend's laptop! But yeah,
today's topic is work in Japan and what kinds of jobs I know that people have here.
Obviously there’s all kinds of jobs, but I kind of just want to go through, like, the most
common kinds of jobs for foreigners in Japan. I'm also going to be talking about my job in Japan.
Now,
I'm actually mainly a
student, like my main thing here in Japan has always been to study, but on a student visa you can get permission to work.
So I now work part-time after school. No, my job is not being a youtuber. I do not make enough money...hehehe
Please turn off adblock. But yeah, let's get into it.
First of all,
I want to talk about the first job that I had when I came to Japan, and it's probably the easiest one,
if you are someone who is from an English-speaking country,
or you're someone who is very very good at English, in particular if you can't speak Japanese and that is private English tutoring.
Ooh, how do you feel about my shoulders being out? I don’t know I feel weird about it..
Basically, what it tends to be is, you put up your profile, being like “Hey,
I can teach English.” And then people reach out to you to be like, “Hey,
I want to learn English from you.” And then you meet up, and then you usually have like an hour,
but it depends on how much the student wants, and like how long you’re available.
And it’s usually mostly conversational,
so it's usually for people who want to practice conversation.
So you don't actually need any experience. You actually just have to be able to speak English.
I didn't actually prepare all that much,
I would usually just prepare, like, a list of questions that I can ask someone for the trial lesson.
Usually you would have a trial lesson that is cheaper than your regular lesson,
But honestly you do a lot of trial lessons, DO NOT DO THEM FOR FREE! Ohhh my god, wait
hehe sorry had to get comfortable. So,
my first lesson was actually a trial lesson that I did for free and it was SO WEIRD, because I thought like, “Oh
it’s a trial lesson I’ll do it for free.” DONT DO IT FOR FREE! It was just this guy and the whole time
he was like obsessing over this idol girl
That he like, really loved and like he would go see her all the time. And he's like, this really like, old dude and I’m just like..
And then at the end of the lesson, he gave me a stack of idol CDs’
instead of payments, because my trial lesson was free. I don't know, he gave me really weird vibes.
I remember being like, “Okay bye!”
And like not getting on my train coz I was like, I don't want this guy to know where I live.
It was just so weird receiving like a stack of Idol CDs as payment like, charge for trial lessons!
But honestly to give you the full tea on that job, like honestly, I didn't like it,
I didn't really like it, at all.
It was mostly just like businessmen and like, I don't know like, I guess they just wanted to hang out with me?
Like, I never felt that comfortable doing it.
I always met them in really, really public places and I never met them at like my home-
I did meet them at my home station! Oh my gosh, don't do that. You shouldn't do that.
Make sure you do not go to their house. Make sure they do not go to your house. That's really, really important.
There's actually a famous case of an English teacher who was killed...
by her student. Ohhh makes me so saddd.
So it can definitely be dangerous,
But as long as you meet in like, I don’t know, Shinjuku station,
and then like, you go to like, a café near the station or something, you should be fine.
But it's also..I don't know..it can be dangerous. Do you know what I mean?
Usually you would meet in a cafe and you would just have like, have a one-on-one conversation and that was basically the job,
it was really easy
but the thing about it is, it was really hard to predict how much money you were gonna be making, because if you have like
a normal job, then you can just count like how many hours you're doing this month,
"Oh, that's how much I'm gonna be payed.” Do you know what I mean?
But if you are someone who does something like this, where it's like a case-by-case basis,
then you don't know how much money you're gonna have and it really stresses me out because I'm a planner. I like to really plan
things out, which is why I'm really unhappy having to buy a new laptop, because mine broke. THEY WERE GONNA CHARGE ME
$200 TO FIX IT. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT $200 TO FIX THIS...
I am that kind of person who likes to know how much money I'm gonna be making, before I spend money.
Do you know what I mean? I remember there was actually a time, around December last year, when I was not getting any students...
I'm not really promoting this job well..
The point is, it’s really easy job to have, if you don't speak any Japanese
I know you can also do it if you speak other languages, but I don't really think there's as high of a demand,
But definitely like, I have a friend who does it with Italian, and things like that.
There's definitely some people so it's definitely worth like just checking out, and seeing if it's something you can do.
Like, if you're not an English speaker. I used to recommend hellosensei.com for it, but now I actually recommend Flamingo, it’s like an app.
The reason I recommend
Flamingo is because if you use Flamingo like there are so many times where the student just cancels last minute and if they’re through
HelloSensei, there's nowhere for you to get the money and
you’ve just wasted your time, but with Flamingo if they cancel within a certain period of time,
(I don't remember what it was) then you still get the money, which I think is really important because there were actually so many
times where I was so glad for that because like I would just go to the station and I would just be waiting there,
But if a student cancelled on Flamingo you’d be like “Sweet, I get to go home. I still get the money.
So yeah,
I recommend Flamingo. But the main positive point about private tutoring is:
A) You don't have to actually speak any Japanese for it,
so it's really good for when you first come to Japan and
B) It’s completely flexible around your schedule,
as long as there are actually students who are willing to come to you at those times.
Let’s move on. The main kind of job that I see people doing when they get to like an N3 level is like, normal
jobs that you would do in like, pretty much any country. So working in shops, or like working in restaurants and things like that.
They're perfectly doable jobs. The pay is not great..
I would say the average pay for those kinds of jobs is around 1000 yen an hour,
Which I honestly don't really feel like it's a lot when you live in Tokyo..
You probably need to be around an N3
level before you're able to get these jobs at least, because obviously if you're doing these jobs you have to actually be able to converse
with customers and stuff. You can get some pretty interesting jobs. For example, my friend Julia worked in the
Liz Lisa in Harajuku before it shut down and now she works in the Liz Lisa in Shibuya, and obviously she’s really liked the brand Liz Lisa
for a really long time, so she really loves the job.
So there's a lot of opportunities for jobs like that.
If you want to find jobs like that,
I recommend going to them, and just checking if they have signs, because usually if they're looking for
staff, they'll have a sign that says like, “We need staff, here’s what you need to contact.” And things like that.
That's usually the main way to get those kinds of jobs.
They'll usually have a sign outside the door or like, next to the cashier or something that says like, “Please apply for a job here.”
Next is one that a lot of my friends do and that is modelling! Now,
there are a lot of agencies for foreigner models in Japan, and you can get pretty successful doing it,
for example PeachMilky_, Sophie. She is doing very, very well in Japan as the model
I believe. I sometimes do see her pictures walking around the shops and stuff. She is very pretty,
obviously. That is obviously like an important point, although obviously with modeling,
there's a lot of like different demands like “Oh we need like an old lady for this thing.” For example.
Do you know what I mean? Personally for me,
I am signed up with a modeling agency, and I do sometimes do work with them, but I find as a student
it’s really
hard
to work it around my schedule, because usually the shoots are like a really set time, like there's no other way, like we can't do
one hour later, we can't do one hour earlier, like it has to be at this time, and that can be really difficult if you’re a
student because obviously like, I can only do like weekends pretty much. But, it is a visa
sponsorship route, if you're someone who maybe doesn't want to live in Japan long term, but you want to have a visa
that's a really good option to go through, you’d just have to ask the companies if they'd be willing to sponsor you a visa because they can
I believe it's an entertainment visa, but don't quote me on that because I'm still on my student visa.
I actually do think those jobs pay pretty well. Not the ones I do!
Because I'm not that pretty..but it's enough for someone who does those kinds of jobs to only do like a couple jobs a month
and then still survive..I believe, don't quote me on that! Coz I don’t know,
I don't know what they're doing. And it does sound like a pretty fun job. So that's always an option..if you're beautiful
which I'm not. Then of course
there is like actual English teaching with like a company or with a school. Usually for these kinds of jobs
you need a bachelorette, or you need to have like two years experience or something like that, like don’t
quote me on this, because a lot of people ask me questions about this and like, I don't do this so
I'm definitely not the right person to ask a lot about this. I just know like, the basics
I feel like? So definitely, if you feel like this is something you want to do, like, look up the details yourself.
It depends on so many things. If you want to find jobs like this
I feel like ///.com is a pretty good place,
but I don't really know again because I don't do it.
But yeah,
there's a lot of people that I know here who do English teaching, and sometimes you do it with like, a school and you're like
the substitute teacher, and then sometimes you do it with like a kindergarten, and you're like the teacher and it sounds like fun, it does,
um, especially the ones who work with kids, although I hear they get sick a lot..
But if you are someone who wants to be a teacher anyway,
it’s a really great route to go, in particular if you're someone who enjoys teaching, and who wants to live in Japan,
it's like perfect, how great. I don't actually think you need any Japanese for these jobs,
but I guess it really does depend on the job. I feel like it would say on the application.
I know that there are a lot of programs that offer this kind of thing,
but I also feel like, it wouldn't be too much of an issue to just apply to the school yourself.
I feel a lot of those jobs are mainly teaching assistant jobs, but Max's boyfriend
Chris, is actually a teacher in an International School in Japan
But he is like, an actual teacher, like, he has experience teaching and he doesn't just teach English,
he teaches like subjects and things like that. To like, international students in Japan. So those kinds of jobs are also available. I feel like
those are the main kinds of jobs, I guess except for..media type jobs?
I guess, if you have experience in media.
But I feel like I only know those people because..I work with those kinds of people, like YouTube
agencies and stuff have a lot of those people. So I guess that's also a job route? But I literally know nothing about it!
Great for me..But yeah, if you’re someone who wants to work in media, definitely look into it,
I don't know anything, but it's..uh..probably an option!
Now let’s get into what my job is, because everyone's asking, because it's confusing.
So basically,
as I said before,
I used to kind of teach English
privately and then, while I was doing that I was reached out by my current company, and they asked if I would like to work
with them, and they basically do English teaching cafes,
which is basically, literally, exactly what I did, but like, more official? So the whole thing is they would have like events, where like people
who want to learn English would come and they would pay to have lessons, like,
conversational lessons with you, and they asked me if I wanted to join them and I was like..okay!
Because I could still do my own private teaching on the side, so it didn't really matter that much.
I basically just joined them because I was like, ohhh I think it’s fine.
But I was kind of lucky because at the time my boss was actually looking for someone who would be able to help with like
videos and things like that, because they wanted to send homework videos out to the students.
So basically, I make videos to send to students as homework, to kind of..support their learning.
I film them, like this, and then I edit them, and all that kind of stuff.
I also help a little bit with writing scripts,
but that's not really the main thing that I do
My boss had been looking to find someone who is comfortable in front of the camera for a really long time,
So he was quite happy to find me because I am a youtuber, as you know
So to me, speaking in front of the camera and shooting videos and editing them is like, whatever, you know
like, it's what I do. But I guess it can be hard to find someone like that..
It's a really nice job though, because my boss is quite chill. So I'm able to work it completely around my hours.
He basically asked me to stop private teaching, and just put all the hours that I can into this job instead.
Which I'm happy with because, again, I have that stability of knowing like, how much I'm gonna get paid. Speaking of
pay, I actually don't think I'm allowed to talk about how much I get paid
So, I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to not mention it. But yeah, it's a pretty chill job,
I was really lucky because it's such a rare kind of job like, where I can choose
completely when I work and it's actually a job that I don't mind doing, because it's basically what I do anyway.
So, I feel like I'm really lucky with this job honestly, but yeah
I think those are pretty much the main jobs. Like obviously, like if you have a degree in science
then there's probably something in that but like, I don't really know those kinds of things because I don't know anyone who does those
kinds of things. Those jobs that I just mentioned are pretty much the only jobs that I know people have here, so they are,
realistically, the easiest jobs to find in Japan. So yeah, I think that sums up everything
Sorry for the very simple video this week!
I hope you at least found it informative,
and I promise you that as soon as things are up and running, I'm gonna be back on that good good content!
Thank you guys so much for watching, don’t forget to hit like and subscribe. Thank you! Byeeee! Subtitles by @kawaiimikan_fan on instagram tehe <3