FAQ
What we are asked before a deal
The questions that come up in real conversations, with our answers. Anything not covered here is answered individually — just ask.
The service
What is Hitoshiru?
An AI recruiting platform for the first stage of hiring. Job creation, application intake, applicant review, the AI interview and the candidate report, all in one console. The AI proposes interview questions, a recruiter reviews and edits them, and the chosen candidates take an AI interview. Candidates answer by voice in a phone browser; the recruiter reads a Japanese report with a score and rationale per criterion, the quoted evidence in the original language and in Japanese, and the full transcript and audio.
Does the AI decide who gets hired?
No. Hitoshiru is designed never to decide an outcome. The AI proposes questions, conducts the interview, organises documents and answers, and produces a score per criterion. Each score carries the utterance behind it, and a recruiter can overwrite any score with a reason. Whom to meet and whom to hire remain a person's decisions, as they always were.
Can I choose what the interview is for?
Yes. When you create a job you choose, from a fixed list, what the interview should establish: whether the experience holds up, how the person behaves at work, why this job and whether they will stay, a first-round screen, communication in the role, or potential. Up to two per job. The suggested criteria and questions, the interviewer's follow-ups and the report's summary are written for that choice, and the report says what the interview was set to establish. There is no free-text option and no culture-fit option, on purpose: those are where the Employment Security Act's topics enter under another name.
Can it be used for Japanese candidates?
Yes. For mid-career and graduate hiring alike, the interview runs in Japanese and the report arrives in Japanese. Questions are set per job to fit the role and the profile sought, so it serves first-round screening across sales, engineering, back-office and other roles. For candidates from overseas, a job can offer the interview in English.
Do candidates need to install an app?
No, and no account either. They open the link in a phone browser, check the microphone and the connection, answer a practice question, and begin. If the connection drops, the interview resumes from the last answered question.
How long does an interview take?
It depends on the number of criteria and how much follow-up the answers need. Thin answers are followed up on the spot, so two candidates on the same job can take different lengths of time. An estimate is shown on screen once the criteria are built.
Does it prevent early leaving?
We do not predict attrition. We have no evidence that would justify claiming to judge in advance who will stay. What Hitoshiru gives you is the material for the judgement: in the AI interview, every candidate is asked, on the same terms, about the experience, the reasons for leaving the last role and the view of the working conditions that a document or a short call does not reach. The decision stays with a person.
The assessment
How is Japanese proficiency assessed?
From the conversation of an interview conducted in Japanese — there is no separate test. Because the JLPT has no speaking paper, the result is a band such as "around N3–N2" rather than a single level, always with a confidence level and the quoted evidence. Under three minutes of the candidate's own speech, confidence is never high.
Is Japanese proficiency assessed when the interview is in English?
No. One interview is pinned to one language, so an English interview contains no Japanese speech and there is nothing to assess. Customers who need both an in-depth English interview and a check of Japanese ability run two interviews.
Can a person correct the AI's assessment?
Yes. A recruiter can overwrite the score on any criterion with a reason. The model's original number stays, and the override, the reason and its author are written to the audit log. The design assumes a person makes the final decision; Hitoshiru does not decide outcomes.
Is there facial or emotion analysis?
No, and it cannot be switched on. A facial image is a personal identifier code under the APPI, which raises the bar for handling it, while an evaluation report does not need it. Video is off by default and only audio is handled. What the candidate sees is our AI interviewer; the candidate's camera is never used.
Law and data
Are the questions designed with the Employment Security Act in mind?
Every question the AI generates is screened by machine, before it is spoken, against the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's 14 topics that may lead to discrimination in hiring — registered domicile, family, housing, living environment, beliefs and so on. A match is discarded before the candidate hears it, and the discard is written to the audit log. The same check runs on the criteria-editing screen, and a job with an unanswered warning cannot be published.
Are interview audio and transcripts sent outside Japan?
Yes. Speech recognition, response generation, speech synthesis and report writing use OpenAI's API, and the processing runs outside Japan. Under the APPI this is a provision to a third party in a foreign country, so the processors are named on the consent screen before the interview, and the consent is stored as the version the candidate saw.
How long is data retained?
There is no fixed retention period. Data is deleted when you ask. No scheduled expiry is implemented, and we do not describe a mechanism we have not built as a policy. A retention period can be set by contract.
Do you hold ISO 27001 or Privacy Mark?
Not at present. Plans are discussed in conversation. Security questionnaires are answered individually.
Staffing agencies
Can an agency use it for several client companies?
Yes. It is multi-tenant: one staffing agency or registered support organisation runs screening for many client companies under its own brand. Candidates see your logo and colours, and each client's data is held separately.
Can each member of staff be limited to certain clients?
Yes. A member assigned to particular client companies sees only those clients' jobs, candidates and reports. A member with no assignment sees every client of the organisation, so staff who handle all clients are left unassigned and only those who should be limited are assigned. No role can widen its own access.
Will Hitoshiru ever run a job board?
No. There is no plan to operate a public job site. Sourcing candidates is a staffing agency's business itself, and a vendor that enters it stops being a vendor. Candidate data we hold is never used by us to source candidates for ourselves.
Read more
Anything not covered here: hello@hitoshiru.com.