Photo/Illutration A demonstration on March 10 in the Marunouchi district of Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward of a presentation job applicants hold to explain what position they want in the company and how they hope to contribute to solving social issues during the final interview at Hitachi Ltd. (Ayumi Sugiyama)

Given their difficult school days during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hitachi Ltd. will no longer ask college job applicants what activity they poured a lot of energy into as students.

The so-called “gakuchika” question will be excluded from its query list for job seekers who will graduate from universities in 2024, according to the electronics giant’s announcement on March 10.

The decision came out of consideration to the students, who had the pandemic strike in their first year at college, as it would be tough for many of them to answer.

Hitachi normally assesses applicants’ personalities and abilities based on their past experiences mainly through gakuchika in interviews.

But the novel coronavirus outbreak led to limited club activities and other after-school programs for most students. Thus, Hitachi found last year that a succession of interviewees answered in similar ways regarding gakuchika, such as that they “built an internet system to enable everyone to see one another online.”

“Such replies were difficult for us to dig deeper into, too,” said Takeaki Shindo, a Hitachi official responsible for the corporation’s recruiting drives.

In the latest recruiting round, Hitachi will primarily ask about interviewees’ desired positions, visions and other elements concerning their life goals.

The final interview will comprise a five-minute presentation for applicants to explain what social issue they want to engage in at Hitachi and how they can take advantage of their strengths. A question-and-answer session will follow.

Interviewees can mention their experiences as students while talking about their positive attributes and other factors.

Whether the change to the interview system will be maintained for next year's recruitment campaign will be decided after analyzing this year’s results.

Signs of other enterprises following suit are emerging concerning gakuchika.

One out of five employers said they would consider changing their interview questions or evaluation criteria because interviewees “have spent their student days dealing with the coronavirus crisis,” a survey that job information provider Gakujo Co. conducted on businesses in February this year showed.

Their core questions are reportedly shifting from gakuchika to “the activity you devoted yourself to in the middle of the coronavirus outbreak” and “any changes in your views over the course of these three years.”

A Gakujo representative said that companies’ referring less to gakuchika is a trend that is seemingly helping to alleviate students’ concerns about recruiting drives.

Asked to select one or more topics they are worried about in job hunting, 39.0 percent, compared with 52.3 percent last year, of undergraduates and postgraduates said they are struggling to work out “what to talk about in gakuchika.”

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