### Intro
Greetings my fellow Redditors and thank you for your time on clicking on this post!
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### Question
The basic premise is as follows:
> How can I pass the SPI Test as a native Japanese person?
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### Reason
1. The reason why I worded it in such as way is because I currently believe being a Japanese by blood would affect how companies would perceive me. I’m native English, and my Japanese is often dubious so I wondered how much this plays a factor in passing the test.
2. My Japanese is especially weak on the academic side as I never had experience in education in Japan.
3. I’m generally very bad at math.
4. I’m slow to read 適正試験 sentences as well.
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### Current Solutions
1. Buy SPI books and try to decipher these modern hieroglyphs.
2. Improve Japanese via Anki flashcards.
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### Conclusion
I believe I am genuinely lost on where to go and it would be nice if someone had similar experiences they could share as well as tips!
14 comments
Companies that still use SPI test as a hiring criteria is probably not a place you want to work at anyway… Might be dodging a bullet there by failing it.
SPI test is just a hazing ritual at this point. Nobody takes those results seriously and if they did, you probably don’t want to work there.
Hi have you heard about our black company combo: SPI test, Chourei, Radio taiso?
Honestly id avoid any company that uses SPI tests. Its a bad sign of an HR that cant think logically about actual good ways to find candidates.
> as a native Japanese person?
I’m pretty sure they just take the online version and cheat.
Get the database of questions of SPI from a friend
(The usual db circled around in unis should come with all systems of tests)
There’s no real benefit to grinding out the tests.
Edit: I guess dm me if you run out of options
Online tests are pretty terrible and without cheating you will likely do much worse than the cheaters.
Paper tests are easy, but yes studying could help.
As others said, SPI may be a red flag.
Just take the online version and trade it for math or english test with a native Japanese.
I didn’t take mine seriously but still got hired.
This response may sound paradoxical but…
1) Don’t listen to the people saying not to apply to companies that do SPI.
2) (Insofar as you prepare as much as other non-Japanese applicants) don’t fret over companies that turn you down over it.
The vast majority of companies in Japan do SPI for new graduate hiring including many very good companies. Even though I don’t agree with it personally, it is a very easy way to 1) deter people from applying and 2) remove a huge chunk of applications from the pile that have to be actually reviewed by a human. There are simply too many people applying to most of the companies the average person knows exist.
THAT SAID, any company worth its salt will have some mechanism for “fairly” evaluating candidates with a native Japanese education background and those without. If that happens to be passport, and you have a Japanese passport, then idk what to do aside from what other successful Japanese people do (cheat). Ideally, they’ll take your education history (and the fact it’s outside of Japan) into consideration (returnees are a potentially valuable human resource after all), in which case you’re only competing against other non-Japanese applicants.
If a company is legitimately relying on SPI scores for determining hiring decisions that don’t take these kinds of factors into consideration, then it’s not a company you want to be at anyway. There are likely other places to focus your time and energy.
Wtf is SPI test? (Yes I’m too lazy to google)
Being Japanese by blood doesn’t help you, if that’s what you’re wondering. I pass for fully Japanese even with my passport and I failed the SPI test when I took it because my Japanese and math just weren’t good enough. Not that that matters too much seeing as I climbed the management ladder at my current company, but.
Everyone’s shitting on the SPI but I don’t think they realize that the majority of the problems on the SPI are the same level and type of problems that Japanese middle school kids do in their workbooks and at school, whether it’s math or Japanese or whatever.
It’s a good metric to check during shinsotsu HR screenings if the applicant has the bare minimum middle schooler knowledge. Its supposed to be very easy for a Japanese native who studied properly during middle school.
A certain Mitsubishi company asked me to sit the SPI when I changed from contract employee to Seishain. After much discussion with HR and me pointing out that it would simply turn into a test of my Japanese ability, it was discovered they could offer the test in English.
I don’t know whether I’m your position sitting it in English is an option, but if so that should make your results much more indicative of your actual ability (insofar as the SPI can actually do so).