Mid-career and new graduates alike! SPI General Aptitude Test recommended for SME recruitment

What is SPI again?

Some people who took the entrance exam for new graduates a long time ago might feel a sense of nostalgia when they hear the term "SPI." In Japan, where a certain number of people are hired as "new graduates" at a fixed time each year, many people probably feel that SPI is practically synonymous with new graduate recruitment.
Its official name is "SPI Comprehensive Test." It's an aptitude test for recruitment provided by Recruit Co., Ltd., which allows them to glimpse the individuality of applicants, such as their abilities and personality traits, that cannot be seen from a resume alone, and it is used by many companies. Not so long ago, it was common to take the test at a specific venue, but recently it has become possible to take it from home or on a computer. From what I've seen, some local governments are using it as an alternative to civil service examinations.

SPITest content

① Aptitude test

This test assesses personality by asking participants to answer approximately 200 questions with "yes" or "no."Behavioral aspects, motivational aspects, emotional aspects, and whether they are lying.The test questions are based on these four perspectives. Regarding the lie detection test, you might think, "Really!?", but in fact, one employee who successfully joined our company received a diagnosis of "possible lying." When we asked him about it later, he said that in the SPI test, he tried to make himself look good by answering in a way that made him think, "Would it be better to answer like this?" He laughed and said, "They caught me out lol." The test results are designed to show how likely you are to be lying in each category, and even after subtracting the parts that seemed like lies, he was still a good candidate, so we decided to hire him. Now he's becoming a key player in our production team.

② Ability Test

It is divided into verbal and nonverbal fields. In short...The questions will be simple, like those in Japanese language and arithmetic. At Lionheart, we sometimes interpret high scores in the language section as indicating eloquence and strong explanation skills, making them suitable for roles like directors or salespeople who give instructions or presentations. Conversely, we also analyze that poor performance could lead to becoming a master of excuses. On the other hand, lower scores in the language section might indicate that explanations tend to be nuanced or that communication relies more on atmosphere. Those strong in the non-verbal section may have high logical abilities. However, even with high logical abilities, significantly low scores in the language section could make communication difficult. All of these points are...It's difficult to judge solely based on ability tests; it's important to consider them in conjunction with the personality aspects revealed in the aptitude test (①).Is.

Reasons for deciding to use SPI, and how to use it.

① Numerous failures that could not be rectified through education

While Lionheart now has at least six steps from document screening to job offer, it wasn't always like that. We took the advice of a recruitment advertising salesperson at face value, who said, "The shorter the selection steps, the better!", and thought, "That certainly saves us more trouble...", and sometimes made hiring decisions after only one or two interviews. Even with our referral hiring program, which we've been doing for many years, we hired people after only one or two interviews, based on the idea of "If so-and-so says it's a good fit." Of course, some of the employees who joined us through that process are still playing a major role on the front lines, but they are only a handful. The number of cases with two interviews or less was so high that it's hard to describe them as anything other than miracles.

Many failures result in mutual disappointment after joining the company. It's that "This wasn't what I expected!" feeling. From the hiring side, it's "So this is the kind of person they are." But it's not really anyone's fault. It's like a couple who start dating without really knowing each other. In the end, they decide to part ways after discussing it for the sake of both parties. We wondered if there was any way to prevent this mismatch. So, we decided to have all the executives conduct the interviews. Even then, it's still just human eyes. To objectively see if they're really a good fit, we decided to introduce the SPI test.
There are many different SPI aptitude tests out there, but Lionheart isHereI am indebted to them.

② Preventing the "NO MORE ○○" approach in past hiring practices.

A common language is created: "Who is that, in company terms?"

First, we implemented this with all existing employees, including executives. With each new hire, we compare them to "who in the company is the closest match?" We also accumulate data on the tendencies of people who left due to mismatches in the past, and check if they possess similar characteristics. The more people we hire and the more data we gather, the more useful it becomes to compare both good and bad cases and see if they "don't seem like so-and-so!"

You can check your stress tolerance.

SPI is useful because it can check not only an individual's personality traits but also their stress tolerance. In the SPI test provided by Recruit, which we use, the qualities in stressful situations are as follows:Toughness, flexibility, and assertiveness are rated on a 7-point scale.This is how it is represented. Creative environments like Lionheart are such that almost all requests are close to fully customized, and the environment is highly variable due to the circumstances of the client and the production team. We have come to realize that if toughness and flexibility are not above 4, the chances of hiring are very low. The fact that the hiring team can have these numerical standards is one of the reasons why we recommend SPI.

Bonus: You can also visualize the different personality traits of managers, executives, and employees.
While the results of ability tests are quantified, aptitude tests are further divided into four categories—behavior, motivation, emotion, and sociality—and then into more detailed categories such as introversion, extroversion, and persistence, which are displayed as line graphs. The graphs for managers and executives have a different shape than those for regular employees, and it is said that each category tends to be significantly off-trend. It is likely that the graphs will also differ between founders and successors, and between managers and executives, with slightly different waveforms. It can be interesting to look at them from that perspective.

③ Application to education

For example, in the aforementioned stress tolerance test, the situations in which a person feels stressed are also expressed on a seven-point scale.Characteristics of organizational culture, job content, interpersonal relationships, and work processes.You can check it from these four aspects.

In terms of organizational culture, you can check how they fare in a dynamic, sales-oriented environment, or in a harmonious, collaborative one. Regarding work content, you can check criteria such as whether they can handle a workplace where mistakes are unacceptable, whether they can handle routine work, whether work requires agility, or whether work demands creativity. In terms of interpersonal skills, you can check whether they have leadership qualities, whether they prefer working alone or as part of a team. Regarding work style, you can see if they tend to get stressed by situations involving rapid change, challenges, speed, or autonomous work. Based on these factors, you can use the PDCA cycle to create work instructions and feedback methods that take into account the individual's characteristics, which is very useful.

Understanding not only stress tolerance but also personality traits helps us understand the root causes of behaviors that people tend to exhibit, preventing us from scolding or criticizing them without explanation. Of course, the results of these tests only reflect the individual's state at the time the test was taken. Therefore, we would like to conduct these tests every two to three years to track their growth process, and we would like to try this at Lionheart.

④ Understand the current "organizational characteristics"

Recruit's SPI3 classifies a person into four main types. It's similar to a blood type personality test; to put it very simply, it's something like this.

Creation-oriented type:A type of person who tackles challenging tasks by working together with those around them.
Results-oriented:A type that values rationality and is motivated to work towards high goals.
Harmony-oriented type:A type of person who works steadily while collaborating with others.
Order-oriented type:This type of person acts according to procedures and rules and proceeds with things systematically.

Lionheart is currently,Creation 4: Results 3: Harmony 7: Order 4The company culture is predominantly harmony-oriented. The management teamResult 2: Harmony 1It's a balance. Depending on the nature of the work, we might not need to increase the number of order-oriented types, or if we're pursuing a growth strategy, we might need to increase the number of results-oriented managers, or if we want to prioritize building a positive corporate culture, we might need to increase the number of harmony-oriented types. By objectively looking at the types of personnel we currently have, it will be easier to plan recruitment for the next fiscal year and beyond.

# Recruitment # Human Resources # Organization Building # SPI # Education