RetireJapan

Hello everyone,

I’m currently in maternity leave with my 2nd son and I’m receiving lot of attractive job offers.
Obviously the recruiters don’t know I’m married with 2 kids.
They know I’m a foreigner woman in my 30s though.

I’m the main provider in my family and make approx 5.5 millions JPY. I receive offers for 10-15 millions JPY.
I think I have a very attractive profile but I’m very afraid of the 6 months trial period and becoming jobless…
I’m paying the house loan myself and have a family to feed, my husband don’t earn enough to cover all costs if I become unemployed.

How risky are trial periods in Japan?
Im considering looking for a job around October next year when it’s cooler so that I don’t sweat going to job interviews ahah
Honestly anything over 8 millions yens would make us live decently enough!
Right now I manage to max out my ideco and NISA already but I can’t save much more than that. I’m kinda afraid to not be able to pay kids schools especially if one of them gets bullied or something and wanna try an international school.
So switching jobs when I’m not too old seems quite attractive especially for this kind of high salary.

I'm not as familiar with Japan labor laws as the people from r/japanlife because I haven't changed jobs that often but I have hired a few people and if the company is reputable enough and you're doing your job properly there's no reason they wouldn't renew you after the trial period. Despite all the horror stories, Japan is trying to change so unless you're unlucky most employers would be understanding of a working mother (they'd know what they're signing up for).

I will say though that if you're talking to recruiters, the salary expectations they give out are almost always wildly top-end and very rarely reflect reality. Go on the job sites and you'll see so many "entry level salary 5-8M" which doesn't seem likely to me. Plus, most of the time they will ask for your current salary and just base their offer off of that.

I’d not worry about the trial period - the worst that would happen is you’d get paid half a years salary, have more experience to put on your resume, and need to find a new job.

The upside is more likely, where you are retained and live happily ever after.

Recruiters want to put candidates in front of employers so it’s not necessarily as easy to get a good paying job as it seems, but go for it!! Make yourself indispensable in those first six months and I think you’ll be set.

(I would like a 15 million yen annual salary myself, but that seems to be more managerial work than I like… but perhaps I am in the wrong industry / field)

Thanks zeroshiki and sutebayashi!

I feel better about the trial period. I’m just afraid they stop it for no reason, for example recruiting someone while someone is sick or something like in maternity leave etc.

Yeah I’ll be careful about the job offers amounts!
I won’t leave my job for anything below 8 millions I think since that was my previous pay before I stepped down for a less managerial position (+ I still have lot of benefits like free plane tickets etc).
Right now I can even do full remote which is pretty cool, but a salary over 10M is really tempting for the kids future!