In hindsight I probably should've written this earlier, I blame work.
Anyways, I'm actually heading over to Japan in one week's time on a family vacation; going back to visit the place/sights I grew up with as a child 10+ years ago. But always in the back of my mind I'm always looking to actually move/land a job there.
Now I think I've posted here before (or atleast in an old thread, definitely in the old old thread back on GAF) but I'm a college graduate currently working in IT. I've now spend a full year doing IT helpdesk in a datacenter, so a bit fancier than your standard IT (I mange installation of gear, racking servers, some basic network configs, etc.) but it's still kinda meh. Not something I want to do with the rest of my life, and quite honestly, I don't see much joy in it advancing down this career path beyond more money.
Around 2 years ago, fresh out of university before I landed the IT job, I did apply for JET but was turned down. Looking back on my application essay I realized it was a bit too flamboyant in language and not hitting the actual work-related topics; something I unfortunately picked up during university to get through my English/essay classes. And I haven't re-applied since due to a combination of the stress of landing the IT job (which took a year of looking) and the lack of people to hand my letters of recommendation. At the moment I can't really imagine my current IT manager, whose a great guy, writing a letter of recommendation for a teaching gig that's completely unrelated to IT.
But I still ultimately have that desire to land a job/live in Japan beyond the once-in-a-blue-moon vacation; the very least know that I gave the attempt. Anyone on here could give me tips/advice? Should I keep aiming for ALT or do there exist entry-level IT jobs in Japan looking for English-speakers? And well, since I'll be in Japan within a week of now, would be really neat if I could meet up with some JapanERA in person haha, but not counting on it obviously.