Applying for The Highly Skilled Professional Visa in Japan

I recently had applied for the "highly skilled foreign professional" visa from the Japan bureau of immigration, and I thought I would share some details about the application process. Information on this process is sorely inadequate from the Japanese government. What we do know is that they have gotten far fewer applications than expected and had granted less than 500 such visas in the first year or so if its operation (see here).

On to the procedure (or what I know of it). First, to apply you will need to fill out a  在留資格認定証明書交付申請書 "APPLICATION FOR CERTIFICATE OF ELIGIBILITY"    which can be downloaded here. On this form, you will fill out all the relevant information as you would for any other application. Under purpose, check Other. How will the immigration bureau know that this is the status you want?

This seems to be handled by the second submitted document, a "point calculation form." Here, you need to be able to substantiate at least 70 points to get the VISA. The calculation has changed since the initial version of the form, but here at the highlights for the academic version:

1. 学歴 ("Academic Background"):20 for any MA (修士又は専門職学位) or 30 points for a non-"professional" PhD (non-cumulative)　（博士（専門職学位を除く））
2. 職歴 ("Professional Career"): 5/10/15 points for 3/5/7 years of professional experience respectively  (again non-cumulative) with professional experience defined as follows: "Experience related to the research, research, guidance or education in which the applicant intends to engage" as a translation of 従事しようとする研究、研究の指導又は教育に係る事務経験
3. 年収 ("annual salary"): 10-40 points based on a chart that cross references age and salary. Basically, yet 10 get points starting from 4 million yen / year going up by 5 every additional million yen and capped at 40 points. If you are 30-34, you cannot get points for < 5 million, If you are 35 to 39, you cannot get points for less than 6 million, if you are 40+, you cannot get points for less than 8 million
4. 年齢 ("age") - 0-15 points. 15 for < 29; 10 for 30-34; 5 for 35-39
5. 研究事績("Research achievements") - 20 to 25 points (you get 25 if you qualify for 2)
1. Patented invention
2. Received competitive grants from foreign countries 3 times
3. 3 publications recorded in the database they search (学術論文データベースに登載されている学術雑誌に掲載された論文が３本以上) The database they search is http://www.scopus.com/. They don't seem to acknowledge the existence of anything else.
4.  Other achievements recognized by ministry of justice
6. Special considerations
1. Work for company that receives "Innovation" support = 10 points
2. Small or medium-sized business = 10 points
3. Small or medium-sized business spending at least 3% of its budget on research = 5 points 
4. Holder of foreign work qualifications recognized by the ministry of justice = 5 points
5. Passed JLPT N1 or majored in Japanese = 10 points
6. Graduated from Japanese university or completed a graduate course at one = 10 point

The next step in the process is that they examine your documents at the regional immigration office. In my case, this is Sapporo. 

They got back to me in about 2 weeks from when I applied. The annoying thing is that they got back to me at 7:18pm the day before a holiday while we were shopping at AEON and that they had previously tried to call my wife twice (who had forgotten her phone). All of that aside, the phone call was a weird one. The gentleman with whom I was speaking (who could not speak English as far as I can tell) was calling with what to me seemed to be an odd purpose in mind and this is part of what made it a very aggravating phone call. He was calling to get me to agree to the following two claims contrary to my documents after which he would let them evaluate my application:

1. That it is unlikely that I would be considered to have five years of work experience

2. That it is unlikely that I would be considered to have three publications per their standard.

Initially, I thought he was asking me to agree to his claims that I lacked five years of work experience and three publications. Consequently, I was arguing with him about whether this is true. But what he was trying to do was get me to accept that it is unlikely that I would be considered to have these. This is a subtle but important distinction. He seemed willing to let my application be evaluated if I would accede to these two claims. But if both fall, I don't have enough points.

Regarding the first claim, I included some of the time during my graduate study. Why? Because the work I did before receiving my PhD and the work I do now and the work I will do at my new job next month are all identical, i.e. research and teaching courses. I doubt the gentleman I was speaking with has any sort of experience with graduate education outside Japan (I cannot answer whether he has any in Japan). From his perspective, you have only one 在籍 - either a student or a professional at one time. And during your "doctor course," you are primarily a student. More importantly for others, he seemed only interested in the time I spent teaching (restricted to in-class hours) and found it inadequate that this did not occupy more time than research. This is weird because my work obligations include both teaching and research.  I asked him where in law this is specified or if this is just a personal judgment. He claimed it was neither in law nor a personal judgment but the judgment of the 入国管理局 ... but then a judgment on what basis? He claims 常識 .

Regarding the second claim, his search method appears to be something related to Elsevier. Consequently, he found only one article bearing my name. The issue with this is that Elsevier might be really for articles in science, but it is by far not that popular in my discipline (philosophy). Thus, when they say in a database, understand that they mean just Elsevier. It was not clear to me if they would have done

After wasting quite a bit of time with him on the phone, I have decided to withdraw my application for the "highly-skilled professional worker visa." I don't expect the larger entity would differ in judgment from the individual. My complaint is that the process is not sufficiently clear. Admittedly, 職歴 makes clearer than "Professional Career" that this means only those times when Japanese people would call what you have 職 but this sort of barrier is why so few people have qualified.

Being hired by a university in Japan

On December 19th, I received a phone call from the chair of the 委員会 indicating that I had been selected and congratulating me. At that point, I still did not know exactly how much I would be making and called the 教務所 to figure that out. They were slightly confused when I  called, thinking I was inquiring prior to selection (a logical thing to do normally). Once that was cleared up. Turns out I will be earning a decent sum of money for the upcoming year.

But there are still several things I want to point out that are probably cultural differences. First, it is now the end of December and I have yet to receive any documents about my employment. Second, I was told that I was 採用. I was not asked whether I wanted to accept the position. I don't know what you do if you hear this from multiple places. Third, I doubt I had any shot without the right connections.

Thus, I am still waiting for the documentation that I will be employed. I will also have to move in order to have this job, which is a reality I face with a mixture of worry an しょうがない.

In Praise of Interac

I've heard a decent amount of negative things about Interac. I can't address whether these things were / are true, but I can say that my own experience with Interac has been quite good. I worked part time briefly for Interac as a substitute ALT entering elementary schools to do two-day gigs. I presented the English version of *Momotarou* (to sixth graders) and *What's This* (to fifth graders). Would I want to work for Interac my entire life? No. But that's because I can get a better job (Interac doesn't give raises -- but that's because you're basically replaceable if your work for them).

What impressed me more about Interac is how they treated my wife's aunt. You see she was working for Interac for a couple of years in her late 50s. First, I will start with the negative: Interac did not address her numerous complaints and let her go when she reached the 定年(retirement age). But now to the positive: many of her complaints, ,it turns out, were not due to a nearby 醤油 factory but due to her having pneumonia built on top of breast cancer that spread to her lungs. That's pretty terrible. But when she needed to be hospitalized, an employer she treated meanly stepped up to the plate and send people to visit her. They even provided her assistance (read money) for getting back to America and drove her all the way from Ishinomaki to Narita airport.

On the flipside, they left it in my hands to cancel her electricity and gas.  But that's not the worst fate in the world.

First Interview for a Position in Japan

On Friday, I had my first interview for a position in Japan. I applied via JREC to this position, but I was also recommended to apply by a foreigner who is friend and gainfully employed (tenured) at the institution presently (though she will be changing to a different university with tenure. Here, I want to briefly explain how the process went.

A week and a half prior to the interview I was called by the 委員長 who suggested three changes to my documents that I had sent. First, he had me move a book chapter that I had put as a 学術論文 to the category of 著書 and then include the authors of the text in the list. Second, he had me add some numbering to the document. Third, he had me move presentations from one place to the list of publications under the category その他 (which did not agree with the directions but who am I to argue with the paperwork expectations of the interview committee chair?) At the time, he asked whether I would be available for an interview the next week if hypothetically such an interview were to be requested. I indicated I could do either of the days he suggested but indicated which I preferred.

Later that week, he called me to ask me to come into an interview for this week, indicating that I should arrive 15 minutes early and where to go on campus. One difference between the American system and the Japanese system is that the e-mail with the details arrived the night before the interview. He also provided some instructions for how to get to the campus.

The interview was conducted by the 委員会. This was five Japanese professors in the English education faculty at the university. The interview was conducted primarily in Japanese though I was told I could answer questions in either Japanese or English. I primarily conducted myself in Japanese doing my best to use 敬語. The questions I received were roughly as follows.

First, the 委員長 asked me questions about the documents I submitted. Here, they confirmed receipt of  the PhD, my current age (32), the fact that I received the PhD in question earlier this year, my current employment, and the status of my publications. Regarding one of my publications, which was published in a relatively minor journal and whether it could be consider national or international (to which I answered I did not think it merited that level of consideration). Compared to a US interview, the emphasis on rating my publications was different than what I expected. I think this matters because it determines ranking and salary in the Japanese system. They count the PhD thesis as a refereed journal article for these purposes, giving me two national-level refereed items and a book publication. Clearly, this is somewhat different from how an American university would assess things.

There were also several questions about which classes would be of interest to me to teach. This position involves me teaching as many as 8 courses in a semester which is no small feat. Moreover, I would be expected to proofread 10 or so 20-page senior theses. This sounds like a lot of work. But there are several mitigating considerations. The expectations for a college course in Japan are somewhat different than for courses in America. First, each course meets only 1x/week for 90 minutes. Second, many of the courses are such that I can work from a textbook and stick to that (or at least I expect to do so to reduce the preparation load). Second, the courses are more practical than some of what I might teach in America. Nevertheless, its hard to imagine how I will be able to get much research done at the same time.

This can also be thought of in a very different light: compare this with other work available in Japan. For foreigners, the primary types of work that are available are English teaching and translation (the latter only if you are good enough at Japanese). Some English teaching requires preparation and other English-teaching does not. Looking at the preparation kind, it pays maybe 3000 to 4000 Yen for one hour of face-time. University teaching pays significantly more (approximately 10000) for 90 minutes of face-time. So if I taught 8 lessons of this kind a week, I would be working almost as much as the college-level job (assuming 8 preps) for much less money. Adjusting for the preps and the time, I'd probably be working as much as 4 college classes for 8 lessons of English working out to a salary of 32000 Yen / week. All things considered teaching English at the university-level is a significantly better deal.

Since my major is not ESL. One question was how I could work together with faculty. I didn't initially understand the question since the way it was formulated was a little hard for me to follow. Here, I shared several of my interests in teaching about culture, but also the questions I have about bilingualism, whether specialists in English education (among foreigners) do lead to better learning outcomes, and about differences between Japanese students and others. I think I answered their question successfully by integrating some of my experiences here teaching English.

This particular university also has a requirement to live nearby, and I was asked whether I understood this. I think they were greatly relieved that the interview could be mostly in Japanese, so it was beneficial to be able to speak. There were no questions about my research content per se, just a comment at one point listing Kant, Hegel, and Kierkegaard.

Success Tip #3: Ask Sympathetic [and Employed!] People to Look at your Resume

I have met with basically no success in my recent applications. I have yet to hear no from every school, but I have certainly heard several nos. I am not sure if the system is any different elsewhere, but they do not announce who they hired so much as s end an empty e-mail or letter explaining that you did not get the job.

What I have succeeded in doing is expanding the amount of university work that I have. In addition to teaching one English communication course at a nearby university, I was able to help teach part of an Environmental Ethics course at the University closest to me. This position also was one that became possible due to connections.

Here's how: I asked my now current boss to look at my resume, and he noted that my title was part of the problem. A little while later he suggested that he could bring me on for a few hours a week to upgrade my title. It's work and a resume improvement all at the same time. It is not full time, but it's a start and could grow into a full course or more in the upcoming semesters.

I still have one or two good shots on the job market, and I will post any useful information I learn through this process.

Bogus 公募 Sign #1: Impossibly Difficult Application Criteria

While sorting through the jobs that I could apply for in Japan this year, I ran across this gem. First, here is the posting information. Please pay careful attention to the publication date:

Data item number	D113101179
Date of publication	2013/11/09
Date of update	2013/11/09

Then consider that the deadline listed is a follows:

Deadline for applications

2013/11/15 Dealine for applications is Friday, November 15, 2013 (12:00 noon) (late applications will not be accepted)

So you are supposed to complete in less than 5 days. Now, if you read the PDF for this Nagoya University Young Leaders program, it seems like a pretty great job. But there's a few further details that make it impossible to apply for in such a narrow timeframe.

2. Two letters of recommendation, one from the prospective host faculty at Nagoya University and the other from the Dean (Head) of the graduate school to which the appointee will belong (Forms 2 and 3) [original and six copies]
3. Three scientific papers authored by the applicant that represent significant achievement [seven copies]

Mind you that this is a early career job. How could one possibly obtain a letter of recommendation from someone at the university without already having connections Moreover, how will they rate "significant achievement"? To make matters better, the job application is not available on their website or at least not in any way that I could find it.

Moreover, the scientific achievements claim is dubious considering that many of the scholars they have hired are not in the sciences. Looking at the list of recipients, this is clearly a way to postdoc many of the people that graduate from Nagoya University until they find a tenured position elsewhere...

The moral of the story: making connections is far more important to your job search than monitoring JREC.

Failure Tip #2: Uninformative and Informative Rejection Letters and Next Steps

The last week of September was a peak time for receiving responses from colleges (all rejections). These letters differ pretty strongly in terms of how they sound and how much English they involve (and how correctly they use it). One university helpfully indicated how many applicants they considered in total: 11. So that means I failed in a one for eleven application process -- not terrible considering I did not perfectly match what they were seeking to hire. Another college wrote in the actual letter "you did not make the short list." A third college said I failed "among other qualified applicants" -- clearly an attempt to copy the Western rejection letter (but one that may have missed that their statement did not imply that I was qualified).

My prediction is that this year will be a total bust on the Japanese job front -- but that's fine. I learned a great deal about the process and will be much better positioned for next year. In terms of positioning for next year, I am teaching a course at a university about an hour away as the instructor of record and I will teach part of a course at the nearest university on logic and normative thinking.  Moreover, I will be taking the JLPT N1. I think I still have a ways to go in studying for it, but I'll do what I can.

Japanese universities only value teaching experience in Japan. I cannot fully blame them for that sort of bias. It is not as if American universities would accept teaching anywhere but America, England, Australia, and New Zealand as having equal merit. (At the same time, I greatly question the quality of Japanese university teaching on average since faculty start with tenure and have no incentive to teach well).