Imajina Partners with Cambridge University to Revolutionize Hiring Standards in Japan

Imajina's New Frontier: Transforming Recruitment in Japan

In a significant move to enhance recruitment practices in Japan, Imajina Inc., a Tokyo-based company, has officially partnered with the University of Cambridge's Psychometrics Centre. Under the guidance of Professor Jon Rust, Imajina is set to introduce the Orpheus Business Personality Inventory (OBPI), a cutting-edge personality assessment known for its exceptional integrity evaluation. This initiative marks the introduction of Cambridge’s esteemed insights directly to Japanese companies, a first in the nation.

The Crisis in Japanese Recruitment

The current landscape of the recruitment market in Japan is suffering from a grave issue - the commodification of personality assessments. With the rise of resource materials and AI, candidates can easily craft responses that align with employers' ideal personas. This often leads to discrepancies between the company’s philosophy and the employee’s values, resulting in costly hiring mistakes that can amount to hundreds of thousands of yen per individual. Recognizing this issue, Imajina has adopted OBPI as a vital tool to combat the disingenuous practices that have become prevalent in recruitment.

Why OBPI is Regarded as the Ultimate Deception Detector

Developed over 40 years by Professor Jon Rust, OBPI utilizes the highly regarded Big Five Personality Traits framework. Its science-backed design allows it to identify potential dishonesty with high reliability. Here’s how OBPI achieves this:

- Detection of Deceit: OBPI identifies intentional distortions aimed at portraying candidates in a favorable light.
- Contradictions: It effectively highlights inconsistencies in AI-generated responses or those from unqualified substitutes.
- Negligence and Carelessness: The model spots careless responses and questions that candidates mishandle, ensuring the integrity of the data collected.

From Casual Interviews to Scientific Assessment

Imajina doesn't stop at merely deriving results from OBPI. They provide targeted questions based on candidate scores to explore individual traits further. For instance, if a candidate scores low on responsibility, interviewers receive tailored queries to delve deeper into relevant experiences. Alternatively, for candidates with high creativity scores, insights are offered about the roles in which they would excel. This ensures that each candidate’s placement is optimized, moving away from relying solely on interviewers' intuition and experience.

Assessing Soul Over Skill: Resonating with Company Philosophy

Imajina has built a reputation for enhancing brands internally by aligning them with their employees' values and philosophies. By utilizing OBPI’s integrity metrics collectively with an organization’s core tenets, Imajina can accurately identify candidates who will embody the brand's essence. This match helps ensure that the individuals hired will contribute significantly to the company’s culture and objectives.

Insights from Imajina's CEO, Yoshiki Sekino

Yoshiki Sekino, CEO of Imajina, emphasizes the importance of transcending superficial assessments in Japanese hiring practices. He remarks, “Hiring in Japan still heavily relies on first impressions and polished resumes. However, what truly shapes a brand is its people. The metrics of sincerity validated by Cambridge provide a solid foundation for manifesting a company's mission. Through OBPI, we aim to evolve hiring from being a gamble to a precise science, fostering genuine growth for Japanese businesses.”

OBPI Overview

- Developer: Professor Jon Rust, former head of Cambridge University Psychometrics Centre
- Features: 16 personality and integrity scales plus four audit scales
- Applications: New graduate and mid-career hiring, management placements, strategic positioning, organizational risk assessments.

About Imajina Inc.

Imajina, which endorses the motto “Brands Start with People,” has supported branding efforts for over 3,000 companies. As a pioneer in internal branding, the company focuses on infiltrating executives' visions into their teams and enhancing recruitment strategies through organizational transformations utilizing psychometrics.