• Content Assistant (1 position available)
• Summer Intern (1-2 positions available)
• Trial Writer (1-5 positions available)

Although it’s probably best if you just head on over to our Tofugu Jobs Page to learn more, here is a quick summary of the three positions:

Content Assistant

This is the biggest position available right now. Essentially it comes down to content and being able to produce a lot of it… without sacrificing quality. The content you will be assisting with includes but is not limited to: video, articles, guides, reviews, and social media. This means we are looking for someone who has experience in both writing and film, with an emphasis on writing.

We are currently looking for someone to fill this position on a part time basis with potential for full time down the road, should the shoe fit. Please take a look at the Content Assistant section on our jobs page for more information.

Application Due Date: March 23, 2014

Summer Intern(s)

Every summer Tofugu runs an internship with the sole purpose of giving all you poor Japanese Studies majors hope (just a little bit). A couple bits of good news for this summer in particular. First, we’re posting this announcement up nice and early. This time we’ll be catching all you early-summer colleges in time. Second, it’s going to be the first summer where we pay our interns hourly (in the past it was either a living/education stipend or nothing at all). So, you know, you might be able to eat food and get off the streets.

The internship will have a set curriculum to it with several goals from our end, but we’ll also be attempting to focus part of the internship on your own interests and future dreams as well. If you’re interested in learning the “Ways of the Fugu” in a mostly educational sort of way, please consider applying for the Tofugu Internship.

Application Due Date: May 1, 2014

Trial Blog Writer(s)

Occasionally we are looking for new writers to bring into the fold. But, there’s a trial period to find out whether or not you’re reliable and consistent enough. This position is that trial.

If you consider yourself a writer and would be interested in writing articles for Tofugu, please take a look at the Trial Writers section of our jobs page.

Application Due Date: March 23, 2014

**********

If you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments below and I’ll try to get back to them. Good luck to everyone who applies!

Publicly, we’ve been pretty quiet about our summer internship which we announced a month ago. But behind the scenes, it’s been anything but quiet.

About 150 people entered the intern application and out of those, only 40 of those people moved on to Round 2. Round 2, like last year, was a time-based challenge: write three pieces (article, review, and/or guide) in 72 hours.

And, like last year, the response was overwhelming. Reading through these applications let us get to know a lot of you better. Some of you have awesome interests and specialties including PhD-level robotics, bento blogs, and pre-war anarch-feminism (how cool is that?!).

In the end though, one applicant was heads and shoulders above the rest. We’ll be running her Round 2 post over the next couple of weeks, and she’ll be writing for us for the rest of the summer.

Without further ado, let our new intern introduce herself!

-Hashi

Meet Fiona

Hello everyone!

Third day on the Queen Charlotte Track, Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand

I hail from North Borneo, although I now reside in New Zealand. I’m at a crossroads in my life somewhat. I had a stint as a lab monkey for a while, where I spent much of my time messing around with DNA. Now I’m trying to reinvent myself as a web developer cum designer cum writer.

I enjoy reading and watching movies, and prior to an unresolvable injury I was also an avid runner. Occasionally I entertain the notion that I might have a green thumb; these bouts are short-lived and ill-fated. I love Google and people-watching, but dislike clothes shopping and making the bed.

Gackt’s sophomore effort: his best yet (in my humble opinion)

My interest in Japan and Japanese started at university. My hostel neighbor played JPop and JRock songs all day, every day. I didn’t pay much attention until I heard Gackt’s “Story.” It was so beautiful I had to find out what he was singing about – and that was the start of what seems to be a lifelong addiction to all things Japanese. (Sophie, if you’re reading this, thank you.)

I’m absolutely stoked to be part of the Tofugu team, and I look forward to bringing you some interesting and insightful posts in the weeks to come.

楽しみにしてください！

Header photo by Quinn Dombrowski

Well it’s that time of year again! We’re looking to bring somebody on board the S.S. Tofugu for the summer (and maybe beyond).

If you’re interested in working for one of the coolest Japan blogs out there, then read on!

Job Description

What would you be doing as the Tofugu intern? Here’s a quick rundown of the basics:

• Unpaid internship that runs for summer 2012.
• Approximately 5-10 hours of work per week.
• Write one post a week for Tofugu.
• Help write, brainstorm, research and edit posts, videos, guides, and reviews.
• Complete miscellaneous Tofugu-related tasks as needed.
• Work from anywhere (with an internet connection).
• One big summer long “project” that we’ll work with you on, based on your own personal interests.

Although writing is the main part of this internship, we’re open to other areas of education as well. Are you interested in marketing? We’ll probably have you do something marketing related. Body pillow sales? You’ll be stuck smack dab in the middle of our body pillows department. But, enough about the backbreaking internet labor you’ll be doing, what do you get?

Benefits As An Intern

You might be asking “But Hashi! What would I get in return for doing these menial tasks?.” I’m glad you asked! While this internship might not be “paid” with “money,” there are still a ton of benefits to interning at Tofugu:

• Learn about what it takes to be a pro blogger.
• Show off your writing to the best readers in the whoooole wide world ♥♥♥
• Witness the inner madness of Tofugu/TextFugu/Wanikani firsthand.
• Free Textfugu forever membership (normally $120) and Wanikani alpha access (priceless).
• Opportunity for future (paid) work after the internship is finished.
• Flexibility to also focus on something you’re interested in learning more about on a professional basis.

If that all sounds interesting to you, then you might want to make sure you fit all our requirements before filling out the application.

Requirements

Unfortunately, we can’t just take any old intern; we’ve got a few requirements:

• Native or near-native English skills.
• At least 16 years or older. Sorry kiddos, it’s a legal thing.
• Strong (nonfiction) writing skills.
• Familiarity with blogging software (extra credit if it’s WordPress!).
• A technical background is a plus!

If you’re still with me after all of that, then you are not only incredibly patient, but you’re also ready to fill out the application!

Part 1: Application

The application is just a few basic questions (nothing too existential or soul-searching) for you to finish up by June 7^th. Now take the red pill and see just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

And that’s it! Be sure to get the application done by June 7^th. Good luck to everybody who applies!

[Header image source]

It’s been a little over a month since we announced our first-ever summer internship and since then, it’s been pretty wild ride. We had about 250 people apply in the first round, a bigger response than we ever could have hoped for. After a second round, we narrowed down the number of people and last week, we finally chose our summer intern. We’ll introduce him in a second, but first we wanted to give you guys a recap of the whole internship process.

Round 2

The people who made it into Round 2 had to write three Tofugu posts in only 72 hours. Over 80 people participated in the second round of our internship application, writing about all sorts of crazy topics. We got posts about brain-controlled cat ears, Studio Ghibli death metal, monkey waiters, cool Japanese music videos, and learning Japanese from music.

Koichi and I can’t thank all of the applicants enough for all their hard work and dedication. As I’ve said before, we’re always so impressed by our awesome community. We love you guys! ♥

Meet John

All our applicants were great, but we had to narrow it down to one person and, as you probably have guessed by now, his name is John. John blew us away by sending in his three awesome entries the very first day. We’ve already turned one of his entries into a post on Tofugu about a weird, Japanese urinal-based video game, and you’ll be seeing lots more of his writing in the future.

John will be helping us out over the next few months writing posts, doing research, working on a to-be-announced larger project, and generally being awesome. Please welcome our new slave intern, John!

Hello! I just graduated not too long ago and I’m pretty excited for this opportunity with Tofugu. Some of my hobbies include listening to music, drinking soda, fighting crime by night, and playing video games. Hashi and I plan on working together to get into Bronze League in Starcraft 2. Wish us luck, we’ll need it.

I double majored in Japanese and economics with a minor in engineering sciences. I am currently working as a computer technician until I can find a job better suited to my degree and experience.

I mentioned above that I like music. I really enjoy electrotrash, post-hardcore, and picopop. I watch a lot of Japanese programming ranging from movies and TV shows to anime and dramas. I play a lot of video games, both PC and console.

Climbing to the top of Mt. Rokko in Kobe, Japan

I studied abroad in Kobe, Japan last spring for ten weeks. It was probably the best experience of my life. I made a lot of lifelong friends, had many once in a lifetime experiences, and really improved my Japanese skills. If you ever have the opportunity to travel to Japan, or any foreign country for that matter, take it! You definitely won’t regret it.

Anyway, it’s great to be here and I’m really looking forward to my internship here at Tofugu! If you have any questions for me, feel free to ask them in the comments below!

P.S. Think John is super awesome and cool? Follow Tofugu on Twitter.

P.P.S. Refuse to believe that anyone could ever be cooler than Koichi or Hashi? Like Tofugu on Facebook.

A few weeks ago, we announced our first-ever summer internship. Between that post and last Friday when the application closed, we’ve heard so much from so many wonderful people. I wanted to share some of the stats from the great Tofugu internship application of 2011:

• 224 applicants.
• People ranging from ages 13-46.
• Readers from tons of different countries (“hej” to our friends in Sweden!)
• Only one troll applicant! (You know who you are.)

But sadly out of all of these incredible applicants, we’ll ultimately have to narrow it down to one (or possibly two) interns. To help us narrow it down, we’ll be picking the coolest of the coolest from the first set of applicants and sending them to the next round. We’ll be emailing everyone in the next couple of days, so keep an eye on your inboxes!

Again, thank you to all the awesome people who applied. Koichi and I were really blown away at enormous response. We love our community! ♥

You should follow us on Twitter here and of course, Like us on Facebook too.

As I mentioned a little while ago, Tofugu is looking to hire an unpaid virtual (as in, you can work from anywhere) summer intern to help us out! Tofugu is successful, profitable, and growing (with two whole employees… that’s like, 1 employee plus 400 employees minus 399 employees). We’re looking for someone to spend 5-10 hours a week to:

• Research Japanese language and culture.
• Write weekly posts for Tofugu.
• Help build and maintain TextFugu.
• Work on other miscellaneous things as required.
• Work on one larger project (decided by you and us together!)

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFdgDvyeuj4']

What will you get out of all this back-breaking hard labor? Well, other than the warm, fuzzy feeling of self-gratification for a job well-done, there are also plenty of other benefits. If you are picked for our summer internship, you will:

• Gain insight into blogging as a business
• Learn about Tofugu’s style of marketing (super secret!)
• Learn how to start / work on your own blog, and be one of the few people in the world who know how to make a living off blogging.
• Get the opportunity to see the inner workings of Tofugu firsthand.
• Stick it to those boring old newspapers.
• Gain some real startup experience and learn about running your own small company.
• Get a TextFugu Forever membership, free of the normal $120 charge.
• Get to show your work to hundreds of thousands of people.

As for what we want, we’re just mostly looking for hard workers. We believe that almost everything except hard work can be taught (it’s an internship after all, so there should be some learning in there somewhere). Your writing ability should also be good (but not stuffy) and you should be a net native, so to speak. Oh, and hopefully you’re an interesting (nice) person, too!

Now, If all of that sounds great to you and you’re willing to bear the hard labor of working for one of the coolest Japan blogs out there, then please click on the button below and fill out the application:

[button link="https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/tofugu.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dHFWNlhFWldncF9saGFhRzJzWTZiZ1E6MQ#gid=0"]Tofugu Summer Internship Application[/button]

So get crackin’ on those applications! We will only be accepting applications for a little over a week, so please have your application in by June 17. Good luck!

P.S. We’ll pretty much only hire interns who follow our Twitter.

P.P.S. Oh, and Facebook, too.