Is “standard” Japanese language test best metric for hiring foreigners?

2 comments

1. No.

   It’s not a good test at all, period. Like many tests here in Japan, it’s almost entirely based on an ability to recognize trivial details (obscure grammar patterns, uncommon vocabulary, correct radicals in rare kanji characters, etc.) over producing coherent conversation. It does not test real-life communicative competence. You can easily pass N1 of the JLPT and still be absolutely useless at real-life communication, exactly the same way as so many Japanese students can get high exam results and yet can’t hold a real conversation in English.

2. Where exactly is this supposed world in which JLPT score dictates employability?

   As a jobless N1, please take me there.