Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

The JET Interview.

This is the time of year when thousands of hapless bastards all over the world are flinging themselves into the hellish limbo that is the JET application process. A long, anxiety-ridden wait is ahead of you. Enjoy.

The first major part of the process is the interview. If you have been granted an interview - well done, they are interested in you. I interviewed in London and as well as country-specific differences in interview experiences, there were also comparative differences between sets of interviewers. So in all likelihood, your interview will be completely different to this.

Having spent the previous month or so researching and brushing up on my knowledge of Japanese politics, business, culture and language (ridiculously, I had left ‘teaching English’ out of my research schedule) I felt quite prepared. That didn’t stop me being incredibly nervous, as I’m sure all of you will be, unless you get really drunk beforehand.

I chatted with the other interviewees in my time slot. There were 6 other people, all with very different backgrounds and qualifications. Here were the JET stereotypes that were represented by the prospective JETs at my interview.

1) The TEFL teacher. This person already has a TEFL certification and has been teaching in a school somewhere in Europe. A kind of wry smile flashes across their face as they ask everyone in the group “so, have you taught English before?”. Looks down on the fresh graduates, like me.

2) The Japan-o-phile. This person loves Japan and wants to get there at all costs. They clearly state before anything else “if I don’t get into JET, I’m going to apply to AEON”. Their Japanese girlfriend has accompanied them to the interview and is giving them last-minute titbits of Japanese trivia and helping them to memorise their self-introduction in Japanese. Everyone else gets bored with this person very quickly.

3) The Gold-Digger. Applying for JET has been a purely economic decision. Panicking after the realisation that their Canoe-Making degree isn’t really going to hold much weight in The Real World, they applied to JET as there was no stipulation on degree-type required.

4) The Directionless Graduate. This will sound familiar to recent UK graduates - “Ah so you’ve just spent 3 years doing an IT degree? Sorry, IT market is in a slump at the moment. Ever tried Tele-marketing? We also need recruitment officers FOR tele-marketing.”

Of course these are the extreme ends of the JET demographic. The average, well-adjusted JET is a healthy mix of everything mentioned above. Before the interview we were required to take a short English test. Nothing to worry about, just some grammar, synonyms, definitions and a small idea on how to introduce a given concept to Japanese schoolkids.

After this we were shepherded into a different room, where we watched an archaic, cringeworthy video of “a day in the life of a JET”. Whilst the video played, we were called one by one to different interview rooms. By this time my heart was palpitating and I was sure that I was about to do a wee everywhere. A Japanese lady entered.

“Jon Cockle, please”

I got up. As we walked to the room, she introduced herself.

“My name is Reiko, I work at the Japanese Embassy”

“Nice to meet you Reiko - my name is Jon. Oh God, you already know that”

Strike one.

We entered the interview room. There were two other interviewers; an Asian-American former JET and an English man of about 50yrs. The man looked remarkably like someone I had met before, and for that reason I think I stared at him for a little too longer than was appropriate, in retrospect.

What followed was quite possibly the most horrific interview I have ever had the imprudence to bring upon myself, ever.

The interviewers seemed to have quite specific roles, from what I gathered by the type of questions they asked. The former JET was interested in how I would handle teaching and work-related situations. The man was there to assess what I would offer and take away from the opportunity of cultural exchange. The Japanese lady was interested to hear of any experience I had with Japan (culture, language and people) and also asked to hear me speak some Japanese.

Almost everything that I had prepared for failed to come up in the interview.

Some questions were quite open to debate and I’m sure that the point of them was to see if you answered diplomatically, and without too much verbal faff. A couple of examples of the questions I was asked included: “What would you say to a student who told you there is too much drug abuse in the UK?” and “What are the differences between Malaysia and Singapore”.

All the time I was thinking,

“Be genki. BE GENKI. Sell yourself as a fun, outgoing and friendly gaijin, you great big twat.”

However, my conduct was more or less the complete opposite of that, what with my emotionless, monotone voice and gesture-free, hands-on-lap demeanour. I was a personality-bereft rabbit, caught in the blinding headlights of the JET lorry, helplessly waiting for the tyre of failure to crush me.

I left the interview thinking I had wasted my chance, certain that all was lost.

Despite my pessimism, I continued to think of what the outcome would be Every Single Day after that, until the notice of acceptance arrived in April, perhaps by way of some miraculous administrative error.

Good luck everyone.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 15th, 2003 at 3:54 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.