Saturday, January 8, 2011

Update on intern applications for 2011

Richard here,

I've been spending 2-3hrs almost every night for over a week reading applications and replying to people's questions, so to help those interested in the internship, I thought I would clarify a few things.

It seems 3 types of people are applying.
1. The person really wants truly to learn karate in Japan, and the fact there are some part time jobs attached is just a bonus.
2. The person really wants a job, and the fact there is the chance to learn karate is a bonus.
3. The person really wants someone to sponsor a visa for them, and the fact there is anything attached to this is a bonus.

Obviously, we want people in the first category to apply, but we would accept the second category of applicants if their desire to do karate is honestly strong.

People come to Japan to learn karate all the time, and those that stay for more than a few weeks have either saved their money prior to arriving so they can cover their expenses or they find some kind of part-time job, which normally interrupts their key training times and access to the dojo for personal practice.

For the internship, we simply organized a series of part-time jobs so the selected interns honestly keen on learning karate can make a little money on the side to pay for their expenses.

Questions I have been getting include;

Do we offer medical insurance?
No, this is an internship so the selected applicant buys personal travel insurance.

How much should someone budget for expenses like eating out?
Impossible to answer since everyone's spending habits are different, but an intern should be able to survive on 30,000yen a month by preparing most of their own meals.

Can they bring their cat with them?
No, pets are not allowed in the apartment and animal immigration can be very expense anyway in terms of quarantining and health checks at the airport.

Can an intern do other things in their free time?
Yes of course. We hope the interns experience as much of Japan as possible, as long as they keep up their internship commits, like not coming late to their part-time jobs unprepared, etc.

I'm very happy to reply to some of these emails. However, the emails I don't reply to are those with grammatical errors or simply unqualified applicants. The reason is simply that we need an intern with strong and proper English skills since they will be teaching English to many different levels of learners.

Finally, applicants should read the 3 application requirements over carefully. A cover letter exposing the great engineering skills an applicant has does not match the requirements. And all correspondence from the very first email is reviewed as part of each application because we want to choose an applicant who can write and present themselves properly.

Sending email messages that look like mobile phone truncated texts like to one's friends will immediately sink an application.

We do want people to apply and we've had all types of people in the internship. I just hope with these notes from me interested applicants can put a better application forward. I'm not going to give too many hints away as to how to make a great application because we want to see what someone can offer and we want to see how well someone is already prepared for the position.

Again, I will reply to regular questions so feel free to email me anytime.

Richard, Intern Director

1 comment:

Fi said...

Posted about the internship to some UK Wado groups on Facebook. Good luck finding the right applicant - maybe I'll apply myself in a few years ;)