Passing JFT-Basic and the skills test makes you eligible for a Specified Skilled Worker visa. It does not make you hired.
Between two candidates with identical certificates, here is what decides it - based on what employers tell us they are choosing on.
1. Whether you will still be there in two years
This is the biggest factor and it is rarely stated directly.
Hiring an SSW worker costs an employer money and months: documentation, the Certificate of Eligibility, support arrangements, training. Someone who leaves after eight months is a loss.
So they look for signals of stability: a coherent reason for wanting this sector, a realistic understanding of the work, family circumstances that support a multi-year stay.
“I want to come to Japan” is not an answer to “why this job”. Have a better one.
2. Spoken Japanese, not certified Japanese
Your certificate says you passed a test. The interview says whether you can be instructed.
Most SSW interviews are conducted in Japanese, often online, and often with someone who is not a language teacher and will not slow down much. Candidates who can hold a short, polite conversation - greet, answer, ask for repetition properly - outperform candidates with better exam scores and no speaking practice.
Practise it: speaking practice alone and interview questions.
3. Relevant experience, described concretely
Not “I worked in a restaurant” but “I worked two years in a 60-seat restaurant, on the grill, opening shift”.
Specifics are credible; generalities are not. If you have no sector experience, say so plainly and point to something that transfers - shift reliability, machinery, physical work, handling customers.
4. Attitude to rules
Japanese workplaces run on procedure: this form, this order, this way of reporting a problem. Employers are checking whether you will follow it or improvise.
The question “what would you do if a machine stopped?” is not testing mechanical knowledge. The answer they want begins with telling someone. See workplace culture.
5. That your paperwork is clean
Name spelled identically everywhere, documents complete, no gaps in your account of the last five years.
Immigration filings are refused over inconsistencies, and the employer bears the cost of that. A tidy candidate is a lower-risk candidate. Certificate of Eligibility.
What matters less than candidates think
- Which score you passed with. 205 and 240 are the same to an employer.
- JLPT versus JFT-Basic. Either satisfies the requirement: JFT-Basic or JLPT.
- Extra certificates unrelated to the sector.
The one thing to do this month
Keep studying Japanese after the exam. The gap between “passed the language test” and “can be instructed on a factory floor” is where offers are won, and it closes with practice rather than with another certificate.
If you have not yet measured where you stand, our free exam demo is a full 48-question JFT-Basic mock under exam conditions.