You are the manager of a hotel. You are considering hiring a foreigner who has just graduated from a Japanese Professional Training College (Senmon Gakko). The candidate has graduated from the school and obtained a ‘diploma (専門士 Senmonshi)’, but he is not a permanent resident of Japan and holds a student visa. In other words, in order to join your hotel, he/she will need to change his/her visa status from a student visa to a visa that allows him/her to work. The candidate’s planned work is not to prepare food as a chef in the hotel restaurant. The candidate plans to work in the management of the hotel’s food and beverage services.

So, which visa should the candidate apply for in this case? Let’s take a closer look.

‘Skilled Labour’ visa (技能)

The ‘skilled labour’ visa is for people who will work in a ‘specialised occupation’ that requires skilled work under a labour contract with a Japanese entity. The ‘specialised occupations’ are specific, the first of which is chefs of foreign cuisine. In other words, it is necessary to work in foreign cuisine, including Chinese, French, Indian, or any other contries, as well as chefs and pastry chefs or pâtissier who make dim sum, bread, desserts, etc. in industrial fields where there are only a few skilled workers in Japan. In addition, they must have skilled skills and, in principle, at least 10 years of work experience as a chef.

However, the candidate does not meet this condition.

‘Specified Skilled Worker (i)’ visa for the food service industry (特定技能１号)

In the field of ‘外食業’ (food service industry), you can work in the food service industry and related jobs, such as restaurant hall work and ramen shop chefs.

This ‘Specified Skilled Worker (i)’ visa for the food service industry is suitable for the following jobs.

Food and beverage preparation, customer service, restaurant management

For example, the following jobs fall into this category.

  1. Food and beverage preparation: preparing, cooking and manufacturing food and beverages for serving to customers (e.g. food preparation, heating, not heating, seasoning, serving, food preparation, etc.)
  2. Customer service: all work required to serve food and drinks to customers in addition to preparing them (e.g. guiding customers to their seats, suggesting menus, taking orders, serving food and drinks, clearing away crockery, setting tables, taking payments, arranging goods, handing goods over, collecting crockery and containers, taking bookings, arranging seating, dealing with complaints, liaising and coordinating with customers in the catering establishment, etc.)
  3. Restaurant management: in addition to the two tasks listed above, any other tasks required for store management (e.g. general hygiene management in the store, staff shift management, paperwork related to recruitment and employment, paperwork related to staff guidance and training, reservation and customer information management, cash register and ticket machine management, accounting paperwork management, liaison and coordination with internal headquarters, business partners, the government, etc., maintenance of various equipment and facilities, replenishment, ordering, checking or quantity management, menu planning and development, (creating menus, POP advertising, etc., advertising and promotional planning, maintaining the overall in-store and outside environment, improving in-store operations, creating and revising work manuals, etc.)

This visa is applicable if the candidate will be engaged in the work described in 1-3 above.

‘Designated Activities (Notification No. 46)’ visa (特定活動)

This visa is for work that requires fluent communication in Japanese. As mentioned above, this visa is for people working in restaurant management, including interpreting for foreign customers and supervising part-time work by foreign students. However, unfortunately, this visa is only available to people who have graduated from a Japanese university (undergraduate) or graduate school and have passed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test N1 or the BJT Business Japanese Proficiency Test with a score of 480 or higher. Therefore, the candidate who do not meet these requirements cannot apply for this visa.

‘Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services’ visa (技術・人文知識・国際業務)

Those applying for an ‘Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services’ visa must be engaged in work that makes use of the specialist knowledge they acquired through their studies at university or Senmon-gakko school. First, in terms of academic requirements, this visa is not only applicable to university graduates, but also to those who have completed a professional course at a Senmon-gakko school in Japan (and obtained a degree of Advanced Diploma (高度専門士 Kodo-senmonshi) or Diploma (専門士 Senmonshi)). However, there is a condition: you must have graduated from a Senmon-gakko school in a field related to the skills or knowledge required for the job you intend to do. In other words, the relevance of your school major to the job you intend to do will be examined. However, I think that candidate who has graduated from a vocational school for dietitians and obtained a diploma should be able to pass this hurdle.

In this case, the main issue is whether the job the candidate plans to do is consistent with the activities covered by the ‘Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services’ visa. In other words, it is necessary to prove that the work the candidate plans to do is not simply manual labour or general office work, but rather work that requires professional skills or knowledge based on academic training, or work that requires skills or knowledge in the field of natural or human sciences.

As mentioned above, the candidate will be working in food and beverage management. This also includes marketing work, such as designing food and beverage menus, seasonal events, and planning limited-time menus. Therefore, the best option for the candidate is to apply for a change of status to a ‘Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services’ visa.