To ensure student life isn't derailed by job hunting: Launching a project to transform the new graduate recruitment market with students and companies.

We support the 'April Dream' initiative, which aims to make April 1st a day to share dreams. This press release is the dream of 'Job Hunting 3.0 Inc.'

Is today's new graduate recruitment respecting students? In recent years, the competition for new graduates has intensified due to a seller's market, making early and prolonged selection processes the norm. The environment of 'early and long' job hunting continues to expand, including securing early selection slots through summer internships and recruiting from the first and second years of university. Furthermore, mass contact and mass selection, prioritizing corporate KPIs, have become common, strengthening a structure that values 'efficiency' and 'yield' over understanding each individual student. As a result, job hunting, which should be a place for mutual understanding between students and companies, is transforming into a process for winning the corporate recruitment competition. Students spend time on formal entry sheets, and companies are forced to judge based on superficial information.

Students, companies, and agencies. Who is today's new graduate recruitment/job hunting for?

Why doesn't new graduate recruitment change despite clear issues? Issues such as evaluation methods, early/prolonged selection, and student quality have been pointed out for decades. These are not problems unique to recent years. Rules for new graduate recruitment are formed by companies and related businesses. However, as recruitment competition intensifies and companies chase goals, it is difficult to step into reducing student burden or optimizing the entire market. Also, even if a company is aware of the issues, if it strictly applies new rules alone, it risks falling behind others and losing talent. Therefore, there is a structural limit to change at the individual company level. On the other hand, it has become clear that the way of recruitment can change significantly due to external environmental changes, as seen in the rapid spread of online interviews due to COVID-19. Through dialogue with many HR professionals, there is a definite intention to break away from traditional recruitment practices that are inefficient and burdensome to students. We believe that if the opportunities and mechanisms to support that transformation are in place, the way of new graduate recruitment can be changed.

To change the way of job hunting, students need to unite. Based on this background, Job Hunting 3.0 Inc. is launching a project, 'Project to Change Job Hunting Together with Students (tentative name),' to improve the job hunting environment with students. This project is an initiative where students themselves take the lead in demanding changes in recruitment from companies, mainly targeting students graduating in 2028 and beyond. We are currently aiming to eliminate wasteful entry sheets by providing a 'Job Hunting Profile Sheet (PS).' PS is a mechanism to accumulate and share profile information such as student experience and achievements in a common format, like a My Number Card for job hunting. This eliminates the need for companies to repeatedly obtain the same student information, significantly reducing the burden of document creation for students. In this project, students will participate by registering for PS as an 'expression of intent to correct inefficient and wasteful recruitment flows.' If sufficient student data is aggregated, an environment will be established where companies can obtain necessary information for selection without requesting additional document submission. This is rational for companies, and as a result, PS will evolve into a standard infrastructure for recruitment activities. Job Hunting 3.0 Inc. aims to realize a rational recruitment environment for both students and companies through this mechanism and eliminate structurally wasteful selection document creation.

Determination and request from Job Hunting 3.0 Inc. This tool is not provided for the purpose of maximizing short-term profits, but as a foundation for solving structural issues in the new graduate recruitment market. Therefore, it is offered at the minimum price necessary for operation. To improve the new graduate recruitment market, it is essential to cultivate the soil, sow seeds, and nurture them over time, rather than 'harvesting' immediate results. In other words, an entity that takes on structural preparation looking at the market 3 or 5 years from now is necessary. However, such initiatives facing medium- to long-term market transformation are difficult to monetize in the short term and are not easy choices from a management perspective. Nevertheless, we at Job Hunting 3.0 Inc. believe that our reason for existence lies in taking on that role. Understanding and participation from both companies and students are essential for the realization of this initiative. We hope that as many companies and students as possible will participate, rethink the way of job hunting together, and create a rational recruitment environment for both students and companies. We believe that beyond that lies the realization of a sustainable new graduate recruitment market where excellent talent is appropriately delivered to companies.