What is a “Group Discussion”?
Are you a new grad trying to land a job in Japan? In a lot of cases, you will have to go through a process called “Group Discussion”. Even if you are a mid-career job seeker, you might encounter this during your job hunting. If you are aiming for a large corporation, this process is almost unavoidable.
“Group Discussion” is a selection process where you have 3 to 10 people in one group, and you are supposed to either solve a problem or come up with an idea within a given time. There are usually 1 or 2 examiners in the room, and they give you the topic at the very begging. After that, they will keep quiet, and assess your speech and actions. Sounds tough right?
Why do companies do this? It is implemented to make the selection process efficient for the company. If there are a lot of applicants, it makes sense to gather them all together and assess them at once, instead of interviewing them one by one.
In this article, we will explain step by step how the group discussion process works, and tips to crack the group discussion.
The Process of group discussion in Japan
The process of group discussion in Japan usually goes like this.
1. Self-introduction
2. Quick interview questions
3. Group discussion
4. Question time
First, as you enter the room, you will be asked to be seated. Then usually, the interviewer will ask you to introduce yourself. You should keep this for less than a minute.
After this, they will ask you some typical interview questions. Depending on the company, this may not happen in the group discussion process but might ask you in the final round of the recruitment process, after passing the group discussion process.
The group discussion will be the main event of this process and will have the biggest impact on your assessment. There are usually two types of group discussions. One is the “Come up with an idea and explain why” kind of topic and the second is the “Here’s a problem, try and solve it” kind of topic. We will explain this section in detail, later in the article. The important thing here to keep in mind is, to know your role and come up with a mutually agreed answer.
Lastly, there is question time. Here, you may ask any questions to the interviewers. You can skip this part if you do not have any questions, but it is always recommended to ask at least one question to show that you are eager to know more about the company.
How to ace the group discussion in Japan
There is a secret to get through the group discussion phase. The secret is simply to
Become an adjuster!
You might think, “What an earth is an adjuster?”. Well, in a group discussion, there are 5 roles you can choose to be.
1. Facilitator (1 person) (announce)
2. Notetaker (1 person) (announce)
3. Idea man (can be multiple0
4. Timer (1 person) (announce)
5. Adjuster ( can be multiple)
Now, there are no rules that define the roles, and it is not always necessary to choose one of these roles. However, there is a tacit understanding among Japanese job hunters that you need to choose from one of these roles. It makes it easier for the group to come up with a solution if everyone knew what role you are in. Again, there is of course no need to follow this rule, if you have a better idea that might be beneficial to the group.
After learning about the rules, you might be thinking, “How should I choose a role?”. Unless you are a Facilitator, Notetaker, or a Timer, you do not announce your role. Since there will be conflicts if there are more than one Facilitator, Notetaker, and Timer, you will need to announce that you are willing to take on one of these roles.
How to be the perfect Adjuster
Now to the most important part. How do you become the perfect adjuster, and why should you be an adjuster in the first place. First of all, why should you be an adjuster? This is simply because it is the most important role and the role that anyone can easily be. An adjuster is someone, who brings back the discussion to the right course and leads it to a mutual answer. Since you don’t need to announce that you are becoming an adjuster, you could easily participate in the discussion whenever the topic goes off course.
Usually, a group discussion usually consists of five parts.
1. Define the topic
2. List up solutions
3. Narrow down the answer
4. Come up with a solution
5. Present the answer
During the first “1. Define the topic” phase an adjuster should ask everyone if it is okay to go with the five parts written above. Although most job-hunter already knows that a group discussion consists of these five parts, you should bring it up again so that everyone actually agrees with this. Also, you should decide how much time to spend on each part.
After doing that, now all you need to do is jump into the discussion whenever the conversation goes off track. Since you have already decided how this discussion will go (in the five parts written above), you will have plenty of opportunities to hop in. Group discussion always comes with opposing opinions, because everyone wants to speak to get recognission by the team and by the examiner who’s patiently observing the whole interaction. Therefore, when the discussion starts to heat up, you could just regather what everyone said so far, maybe add your opinion to it, and say, “We’re running out of time for this section, so how about we move on to the next part?”.
Interestingly enough, if you do this for about 2, 3 times, everyone in the group will start to think that what ever you say must be correct. So it will be easier for you to add your original opinion towards the end of the discussion. If you are able to this, you will pretty much be able to leave a positive impression to the examiner.
