Posted by Tokyo, Japan: NEC and PERSOL CAREER have started a proof-of-concept (PoC) for a direct recruiting service using blockchain technology. The new direct recruiting service is meant for companies seeking IT engineers from India, particularly Japanese companies.
This PoC’s aim is to test the direct recruiting service for Japan-based companies looking to hire offshore IT engineers. GMO Internet, Inc. and Wired Beans Co., Ltd., are among the six companies participating in the recruitment activities for IT engineers living in India.
Engineers participating in the service shall take an IT skill test, where their experience, skills, achievements and resume are confirmed. With this information, recruiters can expect to increase the success of their recruitment activities.
Moreover, the service is based on the concept of self-sovereign identity (SSI), where individual identity holders can fully create and control their credentials, including how their personal data is shared and used.
Points to be verified by this PoC include the following:
- Evaluating the needs of India-based IT engineers seeking to work in Japan
- Simplifying the recruitment process for Japanese recruitment companies
- Ensuring the adequacy of the programming skill check
Background
In recent years, Japan has been facing a major shortage of IT human resources. This shortfall could rise up to 800,000 people by 2030, according to Mizuho Information & Research Institute’s study estimates in 2019.
By attracting IT human resources from other countries will help to overcome the shortage as well as revitalize the Japanese economy and boost its competitiveness. Moreover, spread of the new coronavirus infection has also pushed online recruitment activities and work styles.
Job seekers need to digitally and remotely authenticate their experience, skills and achievements that cannot be measured through conventional interviews and resumes.
Likewise, it is important for recruiters to access the abilities of job seekers. job seekers are increasingly required to manage and control access to their personal data, which raises the question of how this data is handled.
For this PoC, NEC has developed a smartphone application that leverages AONT (All-or-Nothing Transformation) technology along with blockchain technology.
Job seekers can securely and easily manage (add/edit/delete) their highly confidential information, such as personal data, set access control for data disclosure, prevent falsification of information, and ensure high authenticity.
Authentication of job seekers’ skills
IT engineers in India who are seeking to change employers take a test to verify their skills beforehand. Its an online skill check test and its results will be auto-linked to the smartphone application.
With this, job seekers can save their skill certificates as highly reliable information. Companies having access permission can view this certificate.
This eliminates the need for taking a skill check test for each company and expands a candidate’s chances of getting shortlisted. This PoC will be conducted in collaboration with HackerEarth, a developer and provider of IT skill tests.
Future prospects
In this three-month PoC from August to October 2020, the two companies are seeking to create fair job opportunities across India and Japan based on job seekers’ experience, knowledge and achievements, and based on the results, NEC aims to launch the direct recruiting service in FY2020.
Further, in this PoC, considering the impact of the new coronavirus infection, there will be an analysis of the best ways to provide services that effectively respond to the changes in future employment and working environments in India and Japan.
Through this PoC both companies will be contributing to an ecosystem where people from all over the world can live and work in different ways, and can freely trust and cooperate with each other.
“I’m very pleased that NEC will start a new direct recruiting initiative that utilizes its own blockchain technology,” said Teruyuki Nakajima, GM – Corporate Business Incubation Division, NEC Corporation.
“Through these initiatives, we hope that opportunities to find employment online will be provided to everyone fairly and that a world where diverse work styles and lifestyles will be realised,” added Nakajima.