Turning down Interac's first offer

[pinkprincess89]

Hey everyone I'm currently waiting to be placed by Interac and I've been looking on the Facebook groups and it seems a fair few people have turned their initial offer down.
I was wondering if anyone in previous years, turned down their first offer and could say what their subsequent placement was like.

[Gizmotech]

I've never heard of anyone getting a second chance.

[sharpinthefang]

Hey everyone I'm currently waiting to be placed by Interac and I've been looking on the Facebook groups and it seems a fair few people have turned their initial offer down.
I was wondering if anyone in previous years, turned down their first offer and could say what their subsequent placement was like.

Where have you been seeing that? I'm on there and not seen it once.

[ALTInsiderFY]

Where have you been seeing that? I'm on there and not seen it once.

Me too. Got a link?

[sharpinthefang]

Speaking of, one of my many bosses just put this up on fb.
Screen Shot 2015-02-07 at 20.17.30.png


Hahah, stupid lying git.

[pinkprincess89]

Oh it's not on 'interac members' there's a separate 'interac spring 2015 group' and we made a separate group chat. It seems a few of them have turned down Hokkaido and want to be on the mainland. I don't work well in the cold but I'm thinking if I get Hokkaido I'd take it, rather than risking it. The people who have turned it down said intertac were very nice and understanding about it though. I just wanted to know if anyone had any experience with turning their offer down and if they ended up as an alternate/didn't go at all.

[pinkprincess89]

Also Hokkaido looks beautiful!

[BifCarbet]

Interac, is more open to this kind of thing. You probably have to pay your dues in a less-desirable placement, but I don't think they typically show you one place and say, "You don't like? F*#% you, then," like JET does.
Interacs I've known definitely move around more than JETs, so even if you get somewhere you don't want, you could probably throw a few months at them and move. I don't have any insight about declining a placement and getting another, though.

Hokkaido IS beautiful. Great scenery. Vast open lands. Especially if you like driving, Hokkaido is heaven.

[pinkprincess89]

Oh I didn't know you could move part way through the year! It would have to be pretty bad for me to move, I think with this job you need to keep an open mind.
Yeah every time someone turns it down I end up researching it and liking it more!
Also does anyone know how likely it is if you stay on another year, and request a popular area (eg. Kansai), you'll get it. They said to us that they give current employees first pick, is this true?

[BifCarbet]

You earn the right to move into better placements. Of course, they can only move people into openings, so if you want Osaka, Kobe, or Kyoto, you might get Mie, or something, which would be pretty cool.

Note: I'm talking about Interac, not JET, to be clear.

[Risingfromashes]

pinkprincess89, I spoke with a few people who have turned down their placements. They said they were told that would get moved to the bottom of the stack and would be offered another placement in 7-10 days. Not sure how that will actually turn out, but that is what they were told. Also, I saw that the staff mentioned that people were turning down some placements in a facebook post. It's on the Recruitment page and not the members page. https://www.facebook.com/groups/interacamerica/.

In the previous placement threads on this forum as well there were a few people that mentioned declining placements and being issued a new one, so I'm thinking that it's discouraged, but that it does happen.

[ALTInsiderFY]

Agree with the other poster, if you have a place you want to go to that badly, you'll pay your dues by being an Awesome ALT in a "non-ideal" place for 6 months or a year to build up the right to request to move closer to where you want. That is a good point of Interac. Much more moveable than JET.
Good luck!

[BifCarbet]

Also, you might fall in love with your "non-ideal" placement. It happens a lot.

[ALTInsiderFY]

Also, you might fall in love with your "non-ideal" placement. It happens a lot.

Happened to me.

[Zolrak 22]

Happened to me.

Give us the scoop.

You are always trading information, but rarely talk about yourself.

[ALTInsiderFY]

Fair point Zolrak.

I usually leave out bio stuff since it usually doesn't add to the convo, but since you asked....

I dreamed of living in Fukuoka city since it seemed like the most modern city in the world to my never-been-to-Japan eyes.

I got placed elsewhere, and was pissed and considered waiting for another chance to live where I wanted to. I ended up going with the attitude of, "lf it sucks I leave."

7 years later after many chances to relocate I'm still here. I do regret not doing that and very much recommend that long term ALTs take the chance to relocate once if given the chance. If helps avoid, or at least delay, becoming a bitter gaijin.

Now I'm married with first kid on the way, so not sure how many more years I'll be in this "non-ideal" placement I got all those years ago.

How about you Zolrak?

[mothy]

That sounds painfully familiar.

[ALTInsiderFY]

I think not relocating for a long period of time is a product of not knowing anything when you first get to Japan and having to "build up" friends, activities, basically another social life. It's not easy, so when you finally get that sort of figured out, the idea of doing that again, even in a city you really wanted to live in initially, doesn't sound very appealing.

But I regret not doing it. Not doing something just because it's out of your comfort zone is the fast track to hating yourself or your surroundings. At least it was for me.

Luckily I shook it, but it took having the same talk at about 50 gaijin bars with 50 different people about how Japan wasn't all we hoped it would be until I realized it wasn't Japan's fault, it was mine.

[mothy]

Nah, it's Japan's fault too.

[itsabird]

Nah, it's Japan's fault too.

I agree with moths. It's completely Japan's fault..... Who am I kidding, I've never even been to Japan some would say.