Crafting Your Japan Working Holiday Motivation Letter: A Guide to Success

How to Write a Working Holiday Application’s Statement of Purpose?

Summary

Understanding the Visa Officer’s Perspective

The “Statement of Purpose” should be written with the visa examiner in mind, focusing on why you should be granted this visa. It’s important to understand the objectives of the Working Holiday Program, which include fostering international perspective among youth and promoting mutual understanding between countries.

Content Strategy

The “Statement of Purpose” should address five key areas:

1. Why you chose Japan.
2. The necessity of a Working Holiday.
3. Your feelings towards Japan.
4. Planned activities in Japan and their motivations.
5. Future plans after returning to your home country.

Avoiding Common Mistakes

The “Statement of Purpose” should not replicate the plan submitted with the visa application. It should not indicate intentions to solely study or work, imitate others’ essays, or hint at a desire to stay in Japan indefinitely. The focus should be on cultural exchange and personal growth, not on long-term employment or study.

Emphasizing Cultural Exchange and Personal Growth

The “Statement of Purpose” should clearly state your intentions to understand Japanese culture and lifestyle and your desire to share your own culture. It should also reflect a commitment to return to your home country after the visa period.

Writing Style and Length

The “Statement of Purpose” should be original and express your genuine thoughts and feelings. Generally, it can be written in Japanese or English, but it should be well-written and correctly formatted.

How to do a working holiday application Statement of Purpose?

The important thing is to “put yourself in the visa officer’s mind. First of all, as a basic premise, a Statement of Purpose is not just a list of things you want to do in Japan. The application form for a working holiday visa also includes a proposal schedule for your stay, and it is sufficient to write there what you want to do. And yet, as if this were not enough, there are those who lazily write the same thing in their Statement of Purpose as they do in their plans. Rather, it is of utmost importance to “put yourself in the visa officer’s mind” as you write. The visa officer here is, of course, the person who examines your visa. Imagine what these people are thinking and deciding whether or not they should be granted a visa. Once you know the idea, you will know how to write it.

The person judging is not making decisions based solely on subjectivity.

It is obvious, if you ask me, that there are some points to be checked. And “Let’s give me a visa!” is the purpose of writing this Statement of Purpose. In writing this application Statement of Purpose, it is helpful to refer to the policy of the Working Holiday Program.

In general, the working holiday program is a system that allows youth from the other country/region to spend a certain period of time on vacation and to work to cover the cost of their stay in order to provide them with an opportunity to understand the culture and general lifestyle of their home country/region.

This program is based on the mutual acceptance of youth from both countries for a period of one year.

• To nurture young people with a broad international perspective
• To promote mutual understanding and friendship between the two countries

The primary purpose of a working holiday visa is to allow the holder to travel to Japan for the purpose of working or studying. Travel with a working holiday visa for the primary purpose of employment or study is prohibited.

So the safest course of action is to write a statement along these lines.

As it stands, it says “to nurture young people with a broad international perspective,” so you want to go because “I want to have a broad international perspective.” So, you should write “I want to go to Japan, because I want to have a broad international perspective.”

It also says, “To promote mutual understanding and friendly relations between our two countries,” so I want to understand more about Japan, which is only in my imagination, by actually living in Japan. I also want to tell people about my own country. I want to help promote mutual understanding and friendly relations.”, or “I want to actively talk with the Japanese and promote friendly relations with the Japanese people. I want to be a bridge of friendship.”

The content will be targeted and summarized in the following five areas;

1. Why did you choose Japan?
2. Why does it have to be a working holiday?
3. What is your feelings toward Japan?
4. What will you do in Japan? Why do you want to do it?
5. What will you do when you return to your home country? (Prospects after returning home)

NG words in the working holiday (working holiday) application Statement of Purpose

There are NG words that should not be written. Please be careful. NG points that should not be done. So how do you make the visa officer think, “Let’s give me a visa!” There is a trick to it. It is not to write what not to do.

Here are some of the things you should NOT do.

1. DO NOT write that you wish to devote yourself solely to your studies
2. DO NOT write that you want to devote yourself solely to your work
3. DO NOT make it sound as if they want to stay in Japan forever
4. DO NOT imitate other people’s writing

It is quite dangerous to write these things in a working holiday’s “Statement of Purpose”. Let’s look at each of these.

1. DO NOT write that you wish to devote yourself solely to your studies

The first point you should not write is “I want to study in school”.

The Working Holiday statement states, Travel for the primary purpose of employment or study using a Working Holiday visa is prohibited.

You can of course attend school on a working holiday visa, and you can write about this in your Statement of Purpose.

However, if you write that you want to study hard at school for the entire year of your working holiday, the reader may think that a Student visa is sufficient. A statement for school only is not acceptable. If you just want to learn a language, you should get a Student visa for language school. You should not use a working holiday visa.

Also, if the purpose is to attend a particular school “Senmon-gakko” (animation, cooking, etc.), a Student visa should be used, and if the school is such that the Student visa is disapproved, it is an abuse of the visa.

If your only purpose is to study Japanese, it is a Student visa. Those who specialize only in Japanese culture or cooking also violate the working holiday program, which is designed for mutual understanding between countries.

The key point here is to understand what a work holiday visa is;

The Working Holiday Visa is intended to encourage international exchange between young people from home and Japan, and to deepen mutual friendship and understanding.

In other words, nowhere is it assumed that students will study in school.

Attending a language school for the first few months to get used to the local environment in Japan is often mentioned in Statement of Purpose, and I think it is a more reasonable idea than living in Japan without studying Japanese language, so you can write about it, but for the entire year, I would indeed think that a Student visa would be sufficient.

2. DO NOT write that you want to devote yourself solely to your work.

And do not write “I want to work a lot”. As with #1 above, for the purpose of the working holiday program, a statement for the sole purpose of work is not acceptable. The intent of the working holiday visa is not to increase immigrant. Be sure to communicate your intention to return to your home country.

This is a real case. I know someone who wrote that he worked as a restaurant chef in his home country for a number of years and would like to work as a chef in Japan and failed the screening process.

It is possible to work on a working holiday visa, and the embassy encourages working, so what is wrong with that?

This is also because, like the Work visa, this is not a visa to focus on working all the time.

3. DO NOT make them smell that you want to stay in Japan for a long time.

In addition, one of the fears of visa officer is that you will continue to stay after your visa expires. If they sense this in any way, the application will be denied. Normally, a working holiday visa is only valid for one year and cannot be extended or switched to a different visa*.

*As an exception, the Tokyo Immigration Bureau can handle applications for permission to change status from Designated Activities (Notification No. 5, a.k.a Working holiday visa) for foreingers from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Korea and Germany. Foreigners from other countries and regions cannot directly change from one working holiday visa to another; they must reapply from the COE and must leave from Japan once.

In other words, they are expected to return to their home country after one year. And yet, there is no way we would issue a visa to someone who tries to ignore it.

If the reason for working is not to cover expenses during your stay, or to get to know Japan from a work perspective, you will be considered to be aiming for employment.

I can imagine that the visa officer screening the application is looking at the motivation essay as a very important point to see if you will follow it properly. Therefore, it is important to write about how you would like to utilize the experience in your home country upon your return.

4. DO NOT imitate other people’s “Statement of Purpose”

Needless to say, if you write something straight off the internet, it will be dropped.

It does not matter if you cannot write well; if you do not put your thoughts and feelings into writing, the reader will not understand your motivation. When you submit documents for a working holiday visa application, the person at the counter may read your Statement of Purpose on the spot and ask you questions about its content.

If I had copied statement of someone else’s here, I would not have been able to answer the counter person’s questions immediately, and I would have been suspected based on their reaction. So please write your thoughts in your own words only.

Other Points

If you have a Japanese boyfriend in Japan and you want to live with him, you will find that this is not the purpose of the Working Holiday Program. Please get married and get a spouse visa. This is completely out of the question.

Conversely, if you want to make the most of your Japanese experience in your home country, you are highly valued.

The application Statement of Purpose is usually written in either Japanese or English.

When writing in Japanese, it is still better to write in correct Japanese for a good impression, so make sure to write in correct Japanese, even if you have to ask a professional company to do it for you.

DO NOT list the same things as in the “Proposed Schedule”

As I wrote earlier, you don’t need a Statement of Purpose if the content is the same as the proposed schedule. Some of the worst ones are really just copying the plan, such as “where to go in what month” and so on.

The visa officer does not feel that “I want you to go to Japan on a working holiday” because it feels like you are just trying to fill in the blanks on the Statement of Purpose form.

Instead of just listing them, add a reason why you want to do what you wrote in the plan, such as “I want to visit the World Heritage site of Shirakawago”.

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