The Language Teacher
September 2001

Applying for a University Job in Japan: A View from the Inside

Paul Stapleton

Hokkaido University


Introduction

In recent years, there has been considerable discussion about the demographics of Japanese society and how they are impacting institutions of higher education. The number of 18 year olds has fallen 25% in the past 10 years, while there has been no significant rise in those wanting to enter higher education (The Japan Times, 2001a). The actual figures reveal a bleak picture, with the number of students entering university last year only reaching 1.33 million, compared to 1.8 million in 1992 (The Japan Times, 2001b). The figures for junior colleges are even darker, with only 131,000 entrants, down from 240,000 eight years earlier. These statistics suggest that new job openings for university teachers will decrease in the coming years. The declining number of students puts foreign language teachers especially at risk because their tenure at secondary and post-secondary institutions is generally less secure than is their local counterparts, e.g., the policy of offering limited term contracts for foreign lecturers at national universities has long been maligned. Long gone are the days of the bubble era when native English speakers, without pre-arranged employment, could land at Narita and have a full-time teaching position within a few days.

While demand is being squeezed by unfavorable demographics, a whole new generation of well-qualified young teachers is entering the job market. The present study will show that this has partly come about because of the JET program, which has brought thousands of young people to Japan, many of whom have decided to stay on by finding positions in teaching outside of the program. In the year 2000, there were over 6,000 assistant English teachers (AETs), of whom over 95% were native English speakers (The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, 2001). While most of these did not originally come to Japan with specific qualifications in language teaching, ambitious members AETs have been able to upgrade their teaching qualifications to at least the Masters level via distance education programs, mostly out of the UK and Australia. Language schools, such as NOVA, are also contributing towards the supply of teachers by attracting native English speakers from abroad. Indicators from the present study reveal that language school teachers are also upgrading their qualifications in order to secure university posts.

With this backdrop, this present small-scale study will present a few statistics gleaned from the hiring of two lecturers at a large national university over the past two years. In this study, the job title in question was Foreign Lecturer of English Language. The salary range was 6-7 million yen per annum and the minimum qualification required was a Masters degree in applied linguistics or a similar field. The posting was listed as having an upper age limit of 33 years old and was a limited term contract. Candidates were asked to submit a resume, a cover letter, a list of publications, two letters of recommendation, and a photo. Although such a small study cannot claim to represent the recruitment process in Japanese universities as a whole, it is believed that this study may reflect present trends in the qualifications and experience of young teachers as well as the recruitment procedures at universities. Arising from this experiment, several suggestions will be made to job-hunting readers about how to improve their chances of becoming a successful candidate.

Recruitment

Even the least tech-savvy job hunter now realizes that the Internet is the most powerful tool for finding a job. This year, for the first time, the recruitment process described here relied solely on the Internet to advertise a vacant position. Of the 110 applications that came in for the two job openings over the past two years, 40% came from overseas. While this figure may not be so different from those in the past, it is significant to note that for the one post available this year due to the sudden departure of one teacher, there was only a three-week period between the time that the advertisement first appeared and the application deadline. In this case, also 40% of applicants resided abroad. The conclusion that may be drawn from these figures is that the Internet, while making job searches easier, has also made them more competitive. It should be noted that applicants were allowed to send their resumes by email attachment this year. Table 1 is a brief summary of the characteristics of the applicants.

Table 1. Characteristics of Applicants in Two Recruitment Exercises

Criteria

% per posting
Masters in applied linguistics or related field

70
Masters in other fields

30
PhD or Ph D candidate status

12
JET experience

25
Japan experience

77
Japanese language school experience

55
Japanese university teaching experience

20
Publications

45

Selection

Most universities in Japan do not have human resource departments dedicated to recruitment. An Internet search of recruitment websites at universities in the region (Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macau) revealed that of the 12 surveyed, all had human resource offices. On the other hand, a search of English language teaching positions between January and May of 2001 on the NACSIS job site, which is confined to Japanese universities, found that only one out of 20 job openings required candidates to send their applications to a personnel office. This means that, for the most part, recruitment in Japan is wholly administered by teaching staff in committees. In the case of the present study, the committees consisted of five members for each recruitment exercise. Committee members varied each year and were chosen by vote in department meetings. In each of the two years for the postings discussed in this study, I was a committee member.

Once the deadline was reached, all committee members were given time to read through each resume, an average of 32 for each recruitment exercise (Table 1) after an initial screening had eliminated candidates who were ineligible because of the age restriction or for other reasons. The objective criteria listed in Table 1 constituted an important part of the decision making process. Naturally, the length and location of teaching experience and other measures such as the quality of the publications, which are not noted in Table 1, also had considerable effect. For example, with all other criteria being equal, a candidate with full-time university teaching experience as well as refereed publications would have a better chance of being shortlisted than a similar candidate with part-time experience or unrefereed publications. In the end, because of the age restriction, most candidates had neither refereed publications nor full-time Japanese university experience. The age restriction may also have also been a reason for the lack of candidates with experience in activities such as editing journals or presenting at conferences. Other more qualitative criteria that influenced committee members included the comments of referees, presentation style, the name of the university where they had studied, and the cover letter. Suffice to say that the objective criteria, listed above, served to create the shortlist for most committee members, while the qualitative criteria were usually saved to distinguish between shortlisted candidates.

In any recruitment process, various intangibles exist that make the outcome somewhat unpredictable. In a perfect world, these would be eliminated resulting in the best candidate always being selected. Biases always exist however. Perhaps the worst of such biases are connections or nepotism, something not unknown in Japan. Encouragingly, in the case of both selections in the present study, personal connections or nepotism played no role. Other nuances, however, can sometimes appear. One of these may include the attempt to achieve balance within the department. For example, language departments often attempt to have speakers from several different countries so that local teachers can draw on different knowledge about language, accents, dialects, and culture. If a department has five foreign lecturers and all of them come from the United States, for example, there may be some bias towards filling a vacancy with a UK national for the sake of diversity. Ideally, such a bias would not result in the selection of someone who is significantly less qualified or experienced simply because of his or her nationality. Selection committees may also attempt to achieve a balance of the sexes. These criteria can sometimes be critical factors when committees are left with the best of the shortlist. A final word should be said about the photo that was required along with the other application documents. In some Western countries photos have long disappeared from applications because of the possibility for discrimination based on appearance. In a similar search of the NACSIS website of English teaching jobs as that described above, it was found that fewer than half of the recruitment exercises surveyed required a photo. Interestingly, none of the other sites in the region, also described above, required a photo.

Advice

While all job postings have their own characteristics and peculiarities, some lessons may be gleaned from the recruitment exercises discussed in this study. Easily, the most poignant of these is the rapidly rising standard of job applicants. Successful candidates for the same position as little as three years ago would not even have made the shortlist this year. The opportunity to upgrade one's education via distance learning appears to be making a doctoral degree the new standard for university language teachers. It is no coincidence that last year's successful applicant was a doctoral candidate, and the final three shortlisted candidates this year were all engaged in doctoral studies. Some may argue that requiring a doctorate to teach what largely amounts to first and second year undergraduate conversation classes is an excessive requirement. This may well be true, and to some extent a doctor of applied linguistics may even perform the job more poorly due to expectations that are unrealized. However, the fact remains that university administrators need to satisfy both bureaucrats and the public, including parents and students, that they have recruited highly qualified staff. Underscoring this is the rapid growth in the number of graduate schools in Japan. The number of doctorate degrees awarded by Japanese universities increased by 67% between 1990 and 2000 (Japan Information Network, 2001). Thus, a native English-speaking teacher with a doctorate provides a university with the flexibility it may need to fill teaching openings in graduate courses.

Beyond educational qualifications, an equally important concern of selection committees is simply whether the applicant appears able to do the job. Past and current experience is considered the best indicators of this; therefore, full-time university teaching experience is most desirable, closely followed by a good record of part-time experience. Strong letters of reference help to substantiate this experience. Published works, especially those that have been refereed, are even more important than letters of recommendation because they attest to a candidate's commitment to research in the field.

The appearance of one's application is a subjective, but an important final consideration. From examining the files from two candidates in the recruitment exercises for this present study, two suggestions can be made:

Brevity also plays a role in one's presentation. As stated above, human resources offices generally do not handle recruitment in Japan. Accordingly, candidates should appreciate that selection committee members have other professional commitments to attend to. When applicants write at length about their enthusiasm and teaching philosophy, the reader immediately wonders whether these attestations shouldn't be voiced by referees, not the candidate him or herself. In effect, anyone can say, "I'm a great teacher." Such pronouncements are effectively meaningless and only waste the time of committee members. Because committee members have limited time and dozens of applications to peruse, candidates have a very limited time to make an impact. The cover letter and resume should be confined to three pages, although some committee members may be willing to read more. Naturally, publication and presentation lists should not be limited. Other suggestions include buying a tasteful folder and reasonable stock paper.

Finally, consider that another set of human beings, fully equipped with their own sets of biases, will open your envelope (or email attachment) and immediately begin to form impressions of you upon seeing and touching your presentation. Spend time thinking about the following layout suggestions: (a) centering, (b) repetition (don't use multiple fonts), (c) alignment, and (d) proximity (don't crowd your margins; leave plenty of white space).

After reading this far, some readers may find the application process daunting. Aspiring to get one's foot in the door but lacking many of the qualities outlined above, the future may appear bleak. It needn't be. Unlike 10 years ago when entrance into masters programs was much more competitive, good distance education programs will accept almost anyone with a credible undergraduate degree. Some assignments towards the degree can be sent off to second-tier journals, and those that are rejected can be sent to lesser, unrefereed journals at institutions where one may be teaching part-time. After three years, not only has one attained a graduate degree, but one has also acquired a legitimate publications list. Undoubtedly, this is easier said than done; however, a cursory scan through the resumes of the 62 candidates who were surveyed for this study reveals that many of them had followed this exact course. The shortlisted candidates had gone even further and secured doctoral level qualifications. As we head deeper into the twenty-first century, this is the reality that every aspiring university language teacher faces.

References

The number of JET participants from 1987 to 2000. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. [Online]. Available: <www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/jet/participants.html>

College brace as fewer apply. (2001a, Feb. 1). The Japan Times. [Online]. Available: <www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20010201b9.htm>

Buyers' market for college students. (2001b, May 27). The Japan Times, p. 12.

Statistics: Education. Japan Information Network. [Online]. Available: <jin.jcic.or.jp/stat/stats/16EDU2B.html>

 

Paul Stapleton, EdD, has taught English language in Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Canada.


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