Are you really satisfied hiring nothing but ’interview-technique winners’?

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Prologue｜The Futility of the “Should You Take Notes?” Debate — The Real Issue Beneath It

“Should I take notes during the reverse-question part of an interview?”

This question itself shows how ritualized Japanese hiring has become.
Whether a candidate takes notes is merely a tactical choice.
Take them if helpful; don’t if they interrupt the flow.
Yet in Japan, even this action has a “correct answer,” and students who mimic it are “evaluated” favorably — an absurd situation.

The point is not the act of taking notes.
The problem is that companies treat such trivial behaviors as evaluation criteria, losing sight of the true purpose of hiring.

Hiring is a strategic act that shapes a company’s future.
But in reality, meaningless rituals dominate — the number of knocks, posture, reverse-question finesse, formulaic “gakuchika,” and other behaviors unrelated to results.
Both companies and students end up performing a theatrical “correct hiring show.”

The root cause is the replacement of purpose with action — the purpose (selecting the right talent) becomes replaced by the method (judging rituals).
This erodes productivity, produces mediocre hires, and weakens Japanese competitiveness.

Chapter 1｜The True Nature of Interview Rituals — A Culture Where Actions Replace Purpose

◆ Japan’s Mountain of Hiring Rituals

Japanese hiring resembles a religious ceremony.
Knock counts, entry angles, where to place the bag, hair tone, suit darkness — none of these affect business outcomes, yet they’re treated as “correct job-hunting behavior.”

Reverse questions, standardized “gakuchika,” templated motivations — they assess not ability, but the neatness of a candidate’s gestures.

These rituals persist because HR lacks the ability to evaluate what truly matters.

◆ Why “Action Becomes Purpose”

Real hiring requires dialogue that reveals thinking patterns, values, and team compatibility.
But many companies abandon this due to:

Undefined talent profiles
Shallow understanding of their own work
Interviewers lacking the skill to hold deep conversations

As a result, they default to rituals — the easiest metrics anyone can judge.
Thus “those who perform rituals well = excellent candidates” becomes entrenched, producing a pipeline of mediocrity.

Chapter 2｜The World’s Tactics Evolve — Only Japan’s Hiring Stays Frozen

◆ In football, a tactic from two years ago is already outdated

Sports strategies evolve constantly.
In the Premier League, a tactic popular two years ago is already countered.
Japan’s “three-back” system, too, falls in and out of use depending on the era.

You cannot win if you do not adapt.

◆ Business evolves even faster

E-commerce
Smartphones
Social media
The AI era

The world has radically transformed — yet only Japanese hiring remains stuck in the Heisei era.

Reverse questions.
Gakuchika.
Suits.
Bowing angles.
Reading the interviewer’s mood.

When hiring is outdated, the organization itself becomes outdated.
But many companies fail to see this causal link.

Chapter 3｜Companies Have “Strong Styles” — Yet They Still Cling to Rituals

Every organization has a winning style.
Japan’s national football team thrives on collective movement; Brazil on individual breakthroughs; Germany on discipline.
Companies are the same.

But Japanese hiring rituals correlate with none of these.

Knocks → unrelated to results
Smooth reverse questions → unrelated to problem-solving
Gakuchika templates → unrelated to execution ability
Neat note-taking → unrelated to value creation

The less a company understands its own winning style, the more it escapes into ritual.
Students, in response, optimize for performing forms — reinforcing mediocrity.

Chapter 4｜Companies Grossly Underestimate Students

Companies treat students as low-capability, interchangeable beings.
Hence the shallow, repetitive questions.

If they truly wanted to measure interest or ability, they could simply ask:
“How would you approach solving one of our company’s real challenges?”

Even naïve answers reveal thinking patterns and perspective.
But companies avoid such questions.

Because:

They cannot define needed talent
They see students as uniform and generic
Interviewers cannot explain their company’s problems

A company that evaluates candidates based on reverse questions is a company whose HR function is already broken.
If you’re rejected because of a reverse question, you should not feel bad.

You’re lucky you didn’t join them.

Chapter 5｜Manualized Hiring Drains Productivity — For Companies and Japan

Hiring is the gateway to corporate culture.
Thus ritual-based hiring infects the entire organization with formalism.

◆ The vicious cycle of ritual hiring

Ritual performers get hired
Aesthetic behavior gets overvalued
Real discussion weakens
Only form remains
Innovation dies
Productivity drops
The company clings even harder to rituals

This cycle is the stagnation of Japan itself.

◆ Students’ efforts go unrewarded

Serious students want to discuss how they can apply what they’ve learned.
But ritual-based hiring rewards formulaic “gakuchika,” not genuine insight.
This is disrespectful to students — and self-destructive for companies.

◆ Deduction-based hiring weakens organizations

Rituals promote “mistake-hunting interviews.”
But true hiring should be additive:

Does the candidate have strengths?
Do they have room to grow?
Do their values align?

Ritual hiring cannot measure any of this, producing low-productivity organizations.

Chapter 6｜Design Hiring Around Your “Strong Style”

To eliminate rituals and hire true performers, companies must first define their strong style — their winning pattern.

Do they need:

Problem-setting ability?
Team synergy?
Logical structure?
Customer-value thinking?

Rituals relate to none of these.
They are noise.

◆ What modern hiring should evaluate

Depth of thought
Logical structure
Team impact
Problem exploration
Judgment in real work-like situations
Value alignment

This requires interviewer competency and organizational resolve.

Conclusion｜HR, Do Your Job Properly

Hiring determines a company’s future.
Yet current hiring is a low-productivity competition of rituals.

No strong organization can emerge from such a process.

Companies that cling to rituals will decay from within.
So let this be said plainly:

HR, do your job.
Be ashamed that your processes can be gamed by templates.

Fix hiring, and the company changes.
Change the company, and Japan changes.
Ritual-free, strong-style hiring is the condition for winning in the coming era.

Read in Japanese ↓（For Japanese learners!）↓

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