Photo/Illutration Cellphones and textbooks seized by the Metropolitan Police Department are displayed in Tokyo on Nov. 22. (Keita Yamaguchi)

Tokyo police arrested a Kansai Electric Power Co. employee who allegedly took online company entrance exams for around 300 job-hunting students.

Metropolitan Police Department sources said Nobuto Tanaka, a 28-year-old resident of Osaka, used his Twitter account to advertise his test-taking service, and received about 4 million yen ($28,200) in payments from the students.

The account said Tanaka had completed a graduate school course at Kyoto University, one of the most pretiguous universities in Japan.

His arrest is believed to be the first in Japan over such a stand-in service.

Tanaka is suspected of unauthorized creation and access to private electromagnetic records.

Investigative sources said Tanaka in April pretended to be a 22-year-old female university student hunting for a job and took an online company entrance exam on her behalf by using her exam ID and password.

The applicants could take the test from anywhere as long as they logged in with an ID and a password issued by a Tokyo-based credit company.

They were not required to confirm their identity with an identification card upon taking the test.

Police believe the same female student has hired Tanaka to take the online tests of 23 companies that she had applied to, and paid him a little more than 100,000 yen in total.

Police on Nov. 22 sent the student to prosecutors as a suspected accomplice.

Both Tanaka and the student have admitted to the allegations, police said.

There are several kinds of online tests, such as SPI, CAB and Tamatebako. They typically consist of two parts: an intellectual ability test and a personality evaluation.

Companies use such tests to narrow down the list of job-hunting students for the interview stage.

The results of the tests are also used as a supplementary document to evaluate the aptitude of students being interviewed.

Some companies have used the test results to determine the posts and position for successful applicants.

According to an industry source, more companies are using the online tests as a substitute for in-person interviews because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

(This article was written by Ryo Oyama and Shoko Mifune.)

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