Deputy Chief of English Services ‹ Project GENIUS ‹ Japan Guide - 2015

Deputy Chief of English Services — Project GENIUS (From September)

Career opportunity from September for an exceptional educator to assume leadership of Japan’s premium service provider to Japanese private schools. We provide not only English lessons but also consultancy services to Japanese private schools. We are an education consulting firm. We supervise the work of foreign teachers in Japanese private middle schools and high schools.

Tangible Pre-Requisites …



1) Master of Arts in Teaching English as a Second Language.

2) Extensive Classroom Teaching and Teamwork Experience that suggests to us that you would be willing and able to …



a) Improvise demonstration lessons on short notice



b) Critique and discuss curriculum and classroom management decisions, even with experienced teachers who might not be accustomed to having their decisions questioned.

3) Experience in teaching IELTS and TOEFL, and some ideas concerning how you would run such a program — maintain quality, manage growth, cultivate customer loyalty, maintain and improve online tools — if you were put in charge of it.

4) Writing skills. We need you to have the ability to communicate on delicate matters by email in such a way that you do not set off “email flames.”

Intangible Pre-Requisites …



1) A keen consciousness about your appearance and how to look, dress, and act in different situations. Some school visits call for very sharp business attire. On other visits, it’s better to go with business casual. Most visits and meetings will be the only time in months that a person sees you. For many people you ARE the agency, so everything must be calculated for effect.



2) A curiosity about technology and an ability to think creatively about on-line solutions. Being a company where employees are located far apart from each other, maintaining and improving the flow of communication is a constant struggle. Face-to-face meetings are of course vital, but they are not enough. The employees need to feel that you are “there,” even when they don’t see you for months on end. You will need to adapt yourself to the online systems currently in place, and ultimately, you will be responsible for implementing improvements to that system. You don’t have to be a Silicon Valley coder, but it’s not enough just to patient with technology either, you will need to enjoy the challenge of finding better and better ways to for the employees of this firm to make themselves accountable to to each other.



3) Conflict-management skills. Teachers need to feel that you are hearing their side of the story and communicating that to the agency administrators. At the same time, it is not your job to take anyone’s side. The office needs to be able to trust that you are doing your best to accurately represent the evolving situation at each of our schools.



4) Flexibility. If you plan well, you can create enough time off for yourself. There are advantages to your schedule that many teachers would be envious of, but there are no regular days. For the most part, you make your own schedule, but there will be times when the best move is for you to agree to meet with a client on a holiday, and you will need to make that move because it will produce dividends for the company later on. There will be days when a teacher gets sick, and you will need to cover that teacher’s classes on short notice.



5) Initiative. We are looking for somebody that will not wait around for permission to do things. There is always something that you can take action on, and we need to trust that you will take action.

Beyond these pre-requisites, this is an executive position at a small company in a highly competitive market, where small developments can radically impact our strategic position, so while we don’t expect that a candidate have all of the skill sets listed below, possessing a few of them significantly improves your candidacy….



1) Business-Level Japanese and/or a strong interpersonal skills that allow you to communicate across cultural barriers.



2) A strong background in business administration, entrepreneurship, or organizational leadership.



3) A background in web-programming: HTML, CSS, and WordPress-related skills. This skill set is very hard to verify on paper, so you would need to provide evidence that you have successfully completed web-programming projects.



4) Experience in maintaining a blog.



5) Familiarity with Final Cut Pro X or other video editing software.