My fiance and I have always wanted to leave the US and experience living in another country for a time. While not strictly interested in Japan, it has been a primary location of interest for us both for a long time. We are wanting to move abroad at least for 1-5 years. Here's some background info on both of us:
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We're both mid 20s (25+)
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I work in desktop support as a technician, she works as a tutor for a university. I'm currently pursuing a cybersecurity cert to help round out my knowledge to hopefully become a sysadmin or network admin. She's considering pursuing a masters in education.
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We're both financially stable (both live at home, no debt besides my car which will be paid off this summer, in the $25-50k range of savings built up. I know this is a big range, I'm trying to keep my info private). I also can, and would continue to contribute the maximum amount to my retirement account each year
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No interest in long term residence in the US or starting a family (We dont want to buy a house here as of right now, and we never want to have children)
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Getting married this summer. We've been together for 6 years and our relationship is very strong, ans we are very close. We've been to Japan once together already and are planning to go again this fall.
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Neither of us are particularly good at JP, however she is much more experienced than me (college classes). I am slowly self studying and plan to enroll in college classes this summer for JP. I also speak French, which is relevant to us not being strictly interested in Japan.
Basically, we want to know meaningful options for immigrating. We both applied to JET and were rejected this past fall, and plan to apply again and work harder on our SOPs as well as build up more credibility via JP study and volunteering to support our community. I have the following questions:
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What does the IT industry look like in Japan outside of dev work? I am not a programmer and am not interested in learning outside of basic scripting for my job. Are there roles for foreigners in support? If not JP companies, do foreign companies in JP hire foreigners to support their users?
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if there are not roles matching my expertise/experience for foreigners, how can I make myself stand out beyond becoming fluent in JP? Graduate school? More specialized certs? I mentioned wanting to become more specialized in IT, but I have no particular preferences on where that takes me just yet.
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How difficult is it for a married couple to work simultaneously, and live together, as Dispatch ALTs? I already know they make a lot less money, the working conditions are bad, etc. This would not be a permanent role for either of us nor would we want to stay in Japan for longer than 3-5 years at most if this was our entry point. I've done research into the process and know that either both of us would need to be hired and placed close together, or one would have to be sponsored by the other until they could find similar work teaching.
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What does the job market look like at international schools for foreigners? Would my fiance have a chance of being hired at one of these with qualifications such as education masters, tell cert, and teaching experience?
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What other options do we have in other countries (if anyone knows)? We'd love to live in places like China, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. Just to experience a cultural shift and have a unique experience.
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Any other options I haven't considered? I've looked at grad school in Japan as I could receive funding for it at specific universities. However, it seems not possible for me to sponsor a spousal visa while living and working as a student.
Feel free to ask any questions that I missed answering here. My fiance and I both have a love for other cultures and just want to experience something beyond our worldview at the end of the day.
by unit_s