Hi all, emerging from lurking because I've now had a few independent experiences with applying for ALT companies.
For context, I'm a 37M medical doctor in Australia with a post-graduate MBBS from Australia and a BA (English) from Singapore, still living in Australia at the moment. I got completely burnt out working during Covid, but thought I might try out my old desire to work in Japan and try working there as an ALT, at least initially, with an eventual game plan to move up to tertiary level teaching teaching medical English. I'm a fluent native English speaker and for the purposes of the visa I do have 12 years of education in English. I've got some basic Japanese which I'm currently working on, and recently finished a TEFL certificate.
Long story short, I'm starting to suspect that having that postgrad MBBS is actively hurting my ALT applications. I've recently been rejected from Interac, ALTIA and OWLS, have an upcoming interview with Borderlink but given recent form I'm thinking that will likely be a no-go as well. Now, I'm not dumb enough to assume that the overqualification is 100% guaranteed to be the reason for rejection so I've been looking at improving the other parts of my application as well. That said, I have read in the few other threads with similar stories the opinion that ALT companies want young and dumb, not older and experienced so I can't help but feel that I'm basically being checkmated out the door. I get that they are worried about contract breaking, but I get the feeling I'm not going to be able to convince them even if I don't intend to break.
Is the ALT route a bust and the eikawa route (which I really don't want to do) the only option I have left, or should I take the longer route of applying directly to universities, which I expect to be nigh-impossible because I currently reside outside of Japan? Thoughts and advice appreciated
by Important-Egg-3311