MMoving to Japan

How do I realistically get a job in Japan?

  • September 20, 2025

I’m in a bit of a quandary and would love some advice from people who’ve gone through this or know more about the process.

I’m a 29-year-old guy, and here's my background:

  • Bachelor’s in Business Administration
  • JLPT N2 (though honestly, my speaking is more like N3. I fumble a lot in interviews)
  • 5 years working in my family’s medium-sized B2B wholesale business (sales, customer handling, floor management)
  • 3 years working as a freelance JP to EN manga translator for different Japanese companies (remote) (Currently doing this)
  • 1 year as a project manager for one of those Japanese companies (managing translators, deadlines, communication, etc.) (Also remote)

I’m fairly flexible about the type of work I do, business, service/hospitality, or even teaching English (though I know being a non-native makes that harder).

But it feels extremely tough to get hired from abroad. Almost every time I apply, I get filtered out at the resume stage or fumble during interviews because of my spoken Japanese.

From what I see, I have a few possible routes:

  1. Student route
    • Go as a Japanese language student, then find a job after.
    • From my research, it seems easier for Japanese companies to hire you if you’re already in Japan, since they just have to change your visa instead of sponsoring from abroad.
    • Con: Very expensive for me.
  2. SSW (Specified Skilled Worker) visa (Hospitality industry)
    • I already had an interview with an agency for this, and I think I passed. They said they’ll recommend me to some hotels.
    • Con: I’m confused here. I’ve read that this visa is very restrictive. Some say you can’t change it later to Engineer/Humanities visa, and once it’s done, you have to go home. Also, I’ve seen people call it a “slave visa” because of bad working conditions. Not sure how true this is.
  3. English teaching
    • I’m open to this as well, but I’m not a native English speaker, which makes it tricky.

What do you guys think? Any advice, personal experiences, or even reality checks would be really appreciated.

by rahulnanu96

13 comments

  1. >I’m fairly flexible about the type of work I do

    Unfortunately Japan *isn’t*, and this “I’ll do anything as long as it’s in Japan” strategy isn’t particularly likely to be successful.

    You’re being “filtered out at the resume stage” specifically because of your lack of focus/experience in any one particular field. You’ve done a bit of this, a bit of that. Which is fine when it comes to figuring out what you want to do in life, but it’s not fine when trying to find a job in a foreign country.

    As with most of these sorts of posts we have to circle back to one key question: What do you bring to the table that a Japanese person doesn’t?

    You’ve got a decent amount of what could be considered “sales” experience… But you don’t speak fluent enough Japanese, so that’s off the table.

    Your Japanese also isn’t fluent enough for professional translation work. Staff translation jobs are dying out thanks to contractors and machine translation, but they still exist. Unfortunately N2 simply won’t cut it.

    >Student route

    This is by far the best option. While improving your Japanese won’t fix the randomness of your resume, it will at least put you in a position where your fluency problems aren’t costing you opportunities.

    To be clear: You’ll need to actually go to language school and study. If you just try and use it as a stepping stone to getting a job you’re going to have the same issues as now, just in Japan and out a bunch of money.

    >SSW (Specified Skilled Worker) visa (Hospitality industry)

    The SSW also isn’t a stepping stone.

    It’s also not as easy as “Talk to agency, get recommended”. You need to take a skills test before you qualify for the visa. Depending on where you live this is either fairly easy (If you’re in one of the target countries you can take the test there) or pretty difficult (If you *don’t* live in a target country you’ll need to fly to Japan)

    >English teaching

    As a non-native speaker it’s going to be potentially problematic, yes. And it’s ***also*** not a stepping stone.

  2. Are you a native English speaker? Going to teach English is a very easy way to make it.

    Alternatively could you find a Japanese spouse? (Half joking, but I do know people who found a Japanese wife specifically so they could move to Japan).

  3. I agree with u/dalkyr82’s comment. There is no such thing as a completely safe route, but among those three options you mentioned, the most recommendable one is the student plan, and the least feasible is becoming an English teacher.

    We don’t know exactly which country you’re from, but when it comes to the SSW visa, it’s important not to think of it as a “magic pass” that lets you settle in Japan and bring you a wonderfully happy life despite poor language skills. The living conditions of foreign workers on an SSW visa are generally miserable. Not always, but it seems that among the employers who exploit foreign workers under this visa, quite a few either don’t understand the law or have no interest in following it.

    You’ll sometimes see in the news about employers who pay ultra-low wages while treating workers with an attitude of “You should be grateful we’re letting you live in Japan,” or who simply don’t care at all about the well-being of their employees. Recently there are also reports of foreign workers who end up fleeing these situations and becoming undocumented, which certainly contributes to the recent rise in anti-foreigner sentiment. Any industry that hires workers at much lower wages than locals, no matter the country, tends to turn into this kind of mess.

    You say you’re frustrated with your weak Japanese skills, but you’ve already passed the JLPT N2. Your work experience may look somewhat weak, but you still meet the minimum requirement for a work visa: a bachelor’s degree. If you have enough savings already, and if you can avoid falling into debt even in the worst-case scenario of having to return to your home country, then the language school plan sounds like the safer option.

  4. I also have a BBA and 3 years marketing experience and N2 level japanese.

    Your only option is English teacher and your salary will be 3,000,000 yen per year. I’m 100% serious. Not being a native english speaker is fine (I have a russian and philipino friend who teach english) it just means you won’t get to pick the best english teaching jobs, you will be stuck teaching kids.

    Luckily I make enough money from real estate back home I don’t need the income, make sure you have plenty of savings before coming here.

  5. I’m pretty sure you would have already mentioned it, but just to be safe, you’re not from a country that has a Working Holiday Visa agreement with Japan, right?

  6. You can become a recruitment consultant without fluent Japanese easily. As long as you are able to project yourself as being highly driven, confident and able to do sales, money hungry etc.

    Check out Cornerstone Japan, Robert Walters, Hays etc – there are loads. If you succeed you can make 5x what you would as an English teacher.

    These companies don’t mess about though…if you come across as someone who just wants to stay in Japan and isn’t motivated to do sales they will know in a heartbeat and you’ll be rejected. You need to come over like Tony Robbins mixed with Jordan Belfort in the interview.

  8. Do you have service experience? Examples would be working on restaurants or coffee? Hotels need people and they would sponsor I believe. We struggle to find good people around. A hotel would need to feel your commitment in order to help you get a visa, so put that energy out there.

    I work for a hotel in Japan and it’s been the best job I’ve had here so far.

  9. You have no marketable skills, you have zero experience working at a real company (sorry mate, family companies simply don’t count, you can’t get fired or disciplined), and you don’t speak the language – at N2/N3 I honestly don’t even know how you’re able to translate anything, even manga unless you’re basically just running it through ChatGPT and hoping.

    Ask yourself this: What possible skills, traits or experience do you have, that a gadzillion other people *already in Japan don’t* *have*?

  10. I’ve made the experience that most Japanese employers don’t value freelance work at all. I have almost a decade of experience as a successful freelancer, and in multiple interviews (in fully Japanese, which I had no problems speaking) the interviewer went like “oh, 10 years freelance experience? neat. any office experience? no? ok I’ll write you down as 0 years of work experience :)”. so the only experience that’s really going to count is working for the family business.

  11. I’m not in the industry but recruitment seems like a possible good fit for you. If you go the student route then make sure you have enough savings to burn through and don’t expect to get a job at the end of it.

  12. As a 31yo guy, I plan to do the student plan next year. I chose school which help job hunting through partnership etc.. and i will have 1 year to get a good japanese level ( I have N2 but its been some years i didnt practice so i have to get it back)

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