2027 Grad Recruitment Starts in Japan, Only Officially

Tokyo, June 1 (Jiji Press)–Recruitment activities, such as job interviews, for college students scheduled to graduate next spring were given the official starting signal in Japan on Monday, although the bulk of job-hunting students had already received informal employment offers. Trading house Itochu Corp., highly popular among graduating students, started interviewing applicants online, while Daiichi Life Insurance Co., which is set to abolish job location transfers without consent in April next year, launched interviews in person. Every year the Japanese government imposes a nonbinding “ban” on the recruitment of new graduates until May 31, about nine months before their graduation, to allow the students to concentrate on academic activities. In reality, however, many companies ignore the ban to secure talented human resources ahead of their rivals. As of May 1, 76 pct of students seeking jobs starting next April had already received informal employment pledges, a survey by Career-tasu Inc., which operates websites to provide job-hunting assistance, showed. Nojima Corp. launched as early as September last year interviews with prospective 2027 graduates and made unofficial job offers in November “because rival firms had begun their moves,” the major appliance retailer’s public relations official said. Companies are also capitalizing on internship programs to enclose high-potential graduates. “As students have increasingly been joining companies that became the first to make informal job offers, we need to act early,” a recruitment official at a major restaurant chain said. For the 2027 spring hiring season, companies including Japanese mobile communications firm NTT Docomo Inc. and East Japan Railway Co., or JR East, have introduced interactive artificial intelligence-based interviews. NTT Docomo will use such interviews for candidates who pass document screenings, with high scorers advancing to in-person interviews. At JR East, AI interviews will be used only for selected positions. Both companies emphasize that final hiring decisions will be made by their officials, without relying on AI. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]