Pros
Organised a Japan Work Visa, arranged accommodation and delivery of furniture and bedding at my expense but would have difficult to find quickly on arrival. If you chose the independent contractor option you get 100,000 yen towards your Airfare reimbursed half in the 1st months pay check and the other half completion of a year. You can request days off in advance but must arrange for another nova teacher to cover you or pay Nova 500 yen per lesson or 4000 yen per day to arrange a replacement for you. On the Employee contract there is no airfare reimbursement but after 6 months you get 10 days paid leave which is equal to the amount paid as airfare reimbursement 10 000 yen x 10 days = 100,000 yen. The Majority of students who are adult learners and have great attitudes to learning and wanted to practice speaking English in a conversational setting either as a hobby, or for work and travel purposes.
Cons
On arrival in training we were offered two different contracts one as an independent contractor other as a Nova employee. Which is different from the original contract that was signed for Visa purposes. Which is a highly unusual practice and i believe that is occurring due to the fact that the independent contractor contract is illegal and is current court case in Japan regarding this. In the 10 minutes between classes you have to grade the previous class plan the next class and are expected to also say hi and bye to students coming and going and Nova only pays you form 4 minutes of those 10 minutes. If you are late by even only a few seconds they will take money 5% of your monthly pay per incidence of lateness out of your monthly pay. Nova will not explain before hand when and what times of the year they close all there branches for. On the Employee contact paid leave dosnt kick in until you have been there 6 months. so its likely you will have to cover your self out of your own savings during either or both of New years and golden week when Nova is closed. On the independent contact there is no paid leave and you will need to have adequate savings to cover yourself for those periods of unpaid leave. If you chose the independent contractor arrangement and for some reason you cant contact Nova the day before to let them know you are unwell and cant make it to work you will lose most of your pay for that month! If you chose to live in Nova arranged accommodation you can be charged at higher rent then they have quoted you. Dont expect much help from Nova once you have been shown your apartment your on your own working things out. Nova staff can enter apartments uninvited as they hold the lease and sub let the apartment to you they can obtain a key and enter your apartment! If a Japanese Student or Staff member ever has any sort of complaint against you no matter how trivial or serious. The Japanese person are taken as 100% right and you as a foreigner are in the wrong no matter what. Basically unless you really love Japanese Culture, have a Japanese partner, or some outside interest in Japan you really want to purse like snow boarding, martial arts, anime... and can put up with being asked a lot for very little in return. If you dont strong reasons to be in Japan and cant tolerate a lot of needless BS then please avoid Nova at all costs!