Sooo... This is gonna be stupid fun..

This Ex-Gaijin guy and I go way back so when he told me he wanted me to be his foreign correspondent in Japan I said, "Hells yeah! I'll do it."

So here's the deal. I'm leaving my half-ass job that I've been at while I finished up college and I'll be heading for this little city named Himeji in August. I'll be teaching English for a year and hopefully have some memorable experiences while I'm there (haha). Anything utterly ridiculous and/or amusing will find its way onto this blog as will any points of interest, if deemed worthy. But just so you know, it'll never come before the ridiculous.

I've been trying to prepare for my trip by playing Wii and my PSP. Other than that, I've got a rough idea on what to pack, how to steal a bike when I get there and I just finished a book written by a guy who spent a year teaching English in Japan. As far as I'm concerned, I'm freaking SET.

The main thing on my mind right now as I'm sitting here typing this is what I should do for my last day of work tomorrow... There's no one prank that really sticks out that I want to do so I'll just have to go with a mish-mash of smaller, hilarious antics.

That and I've been summoned for jury duty. Fuck.

How can I get to Japan working IT in Finance?

Let's say you'd like to work in Tokyo for a while, but you don't want to live in a 3' x 5' closet. Also, you don't want to put all the years into becoming a trader at a desk at one of the major investment firms. If this sounds like you, then you may want to look into IT. I'm sure when you think of Japan, you think "Surely they have a lot of software developers, these guys make video games"... but you would be sorely mistaken, just see here. And even the developers they do have (at least the ones I worked with), most are complete idiots that have enough problems starting windows, let alone writing any kind of coherent code. So how do you get there? Here's a list of things that helped me.

1. Study Abroad in Japan - Not only did I study Japanese in college, I studied in Japan. This gave the company that hired me the reassurance that I've lived in Japan before so I'll be fine this time too. Too bad when I studied there I was in Hiroshima, and Tokyo might as well be a different continent compared to the slow, rural life of Hiroshima. Also, in Hiroshima, the only other responsibility I had other than waking up in the morning was making sure I could stumble back to the dorms at 2 AM every day. 
2. Get a Degree in a Tech Related Field - This is sort of self-explanatory, but unlike most Japanese developers (that get degrees in history or origami), you'll be held to a higher standard and should have some tech related degree. 
3. Get Some Work Experience - I worked as an intern at a large tech company for a few years during college but that isn't the same as having a full-time job. After I graduated from college, I immediately applied for jobs in Tokyo working in IT. Guess how many of those companies called me for a job interview? None. So after college I got a job at a small tech company for a year, working in a lot of different technologies and responsible for my own work. Then I applied for jobs in Tokyo again... with no responses. Then I moved to a very large tech company, working in one, outdated technology with little to no responsibility. I applied for the jobs in Tokyo again... and got a load of responses. So it could be the 3 years of software development experience, but I have a suspicion that it is more of working for a large company.
4. Demonstrate an Interest in Finance - Probably the easiest way to do this is by taking some courses at your local college in finance. That being said, you don't need to know anything about finance to work in finance. You'll learn everything you need to know when you're on the job.

All of this combined with interviewing well got me a job in Tokyo, with the company paying for the whole move. The jobs in finance might be a little slim right now with the industry being down, but if you really want to work in Tokyo in Finance, there's no time like the present to get ready. In my next post, I'll give you my unbiased ( *ahem* ) view of what it is like working in the finance industry in Tokyo.

(BTW: The longer I wrote this post, the more I drank... so no proof-reading tonight...)