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Recruit Management Solutions Co., Ltd.

SPI3 (Synthetic Personality Inventory)

SPI is an aptitude assessment used in hiring, provided by Recruit Management Solutions Co., Ltd. It is not a certification: candidates take it because a company they have applied to asks them to, and SPI itself has no pass or fail. The current version is SPI3, which comes in SPI3-U for new graduates, SPI3-G for mid-career hires and SPI3-H for high school students. It consists of a basic ability test, split into verbal and non-verbal sections, and a personality test of about 300 questions. Some companies add an optional English ability test or structural comprehension test. There are four delivery modes: test centre, WEB testing from the candidate's own computer, in-house CBT and paper testing. SPI3-U at a test centre takes 65 minutes. Results are used not only for screening in the early rounds but also as background for interviews and, after joining, as a reference for placement and development. The bar for moving forward is set by each hiring company and is not published.

Official page

Who takes it

  • University and graduate students starting a job search who may be asked by an employer to sit SPI
  • Working professionals asked to take SPI3-G as part of a mid-career hiring process
  • High school students sitting SPI3-H in a high school recruitment process
  • People who take too long over the calculations and chart reading in the non-verbal section and run out of time with questions unanswered
  • People not used to answering questions against a clock on a computer

What it lets you do

  • A test centre result can be resent to another company for up to a year (previous result submission). One sitting can serve several applications, which means how you do the first time carries into later rounds.
  • There is both a per-question and an overall time limit, and the test moves on automatically when a question's time runs out. Being used to the format means not losing questions you could have answered.
  • The basic ability test always draws on the same two areas, verbal and non-verbal, so the scope is easy to read and preparation easy to aim.
  • The personality test has about 300 questions, and Recruit Management Solutions itself advises answering frankly rather than agonising over answers or dressing them up. It is clear that it calls for a different approach from the ability test.
  • It is used in the hiring processes of many companies, and the provider says candidates are likely to sit it at least once in the course of a job search.

The exam

As published by Recruit Management Solutions Co., Ltd.. Anything we could not confirm is left out. Check the official page before you apply.

Questions
The personality test has about 300 questions. The number of questions in the ability test is not published; the provider explains that the number of questions delivered within the overall time limit differs from person to person.
Time
SPI3-U / -G / -H (personality plus basic ability) takes 65 minutes at a test centre, on in-house CBT and on WEB testing alike, and 110 minutes on paper testing. GAT-U, which covers the basic ability test only, takes 35 minutes on in-house CBT and 70 minutes on paper. At a test centre, SPI3-UE, which adds the English ability test, takes 85 minutes; SPI3-US, which adds the structural comprehension test, takes 85 minutes; and SPI3-USE, which adds both, takes 105 minutes.
Pass mark
Not published by the provider. Criteria differ from one hiring company to the next, and the provider states that the standard for passing varies from company to company.
Fee
There is no fee payable by the test taker, since this is not a test candidates apply for themselves. The cost is borne by the hiring company. Published prices for companies are, per person, JPY 5,500 for SPI3-U / -G / -H at a test centre, JPY 4,000 for in-house CBT, JPY 4,000 for WEB testing and JPY 5,000 for paper testing. SPI3-UE is JPY 6,500, SPI3-US is JPY 7,000 and SPI3-USE is JPY 8,000 (all at a test centre). All prices exclude tax.
Format
Made up of an ability test (the basic ability test, covering verbal and non-verbal sections) and a personality test. There are four delivery modes: test centre (physical venues in major cities across Japan, or an online venue with a live proctor), WEB testing (on a PC at home or elsewhere), in-house CBT (sat at the company) and paper testing. There is both a per-question and an overall time limit, and when a question's time runs out the test moves on to the next question automatically.
Languages
Japanese. Only the optional English ability test is set in English, in formats such as vocabulary, sentence completion and long-form reading; the vocabulary and grammar it requires were designed around a high school graduate level.
When it runs
There are no fixed exam dates. Candidates sit the test within the window set by the hiring company.
Validity and renewal
Not a certification, so the concept of expiry does not apply. Test centre results do have a previous result submission feature, which lets a result taken within the past year — personality, ability, structural comprehension or English ability — be resent to a different company.

How hard it is

Not published. SPI has no pass or fail as a test, and Recruit Management Solutions does not publish pass rates. Its candidate FAQ explains that the standard for passing varies from company to company and cannot be stated in general terms; each hiring company sets its own bar.

How long people study

Not published. The provider gives no standard study time. What its candidate site suggests by way of preparation is things like getting used to sitting a test on a computer, not a target number of study hours.

Syllabus

  • Basic ability test, verbal section (whether the meanings of words and the gist of a passage can be grasped accurately)
  • Basic ability test, non-verbal section (whether numerical processing can be handled, and whether logical thinking is present)
  • Personality test (measures personality traits from questions about everyday behaviour and ways of thinking)
  • English ability test (optional; vocabulary, sentence completion, long-form reading and similar)
  • Structural comprehension test (optional; the ability to grasp, as a structure, the commonalities and relationships lying behind a situation)

Our apps and books for this exam

  • Ace-SPI

    Download on the App Store

Questions people ask

Is there a pass or fail in SPI?
SPI itself has no pass or fail. The provider explains that the standard for passing varies from company to company and cannot be stated in general terms. Results are used not only for screening in the early rounds but also to understand candidates at interview, and after joining as a reference for placement and development.
Do I have to pay to take it?
There is no fee payable by the test taker. The cost is borne by the hiring company. Published prices for companies are, per person, JPY 5,500 for SPI3-U at a test centre, JPY 4,000 each for in-house CBT and WEB testing, and JPY 5,000 for paper testing (all excluding tax).
What is the test centre's previous result submission?
It is a feature that lets you resend an SPI result taken within the past year to a different company. Anything sat at a test centre can be sent: personality, ability, structural comprehension or English ability. It saves another trip to the venue, but what you send is the earlier result, so how you did the first time carries into later applications.
I cannot finish within the time limit. Am I at a disadvantage if I do not answer everything?
The provider explains that there is both a per-question and an overall time limit, and that when a question's time runs out the test moves on to the next question automatically. On that basis it advises that, because the number of questions delivered within the overall limit differs from person to person, candidates should not rush to answer everything but answer what they can.
Does everyone sit the structural comprehension test and the English ability test?
Both are optional, and whether they are used depends on the company. The structural comprehension test differs from the basic ability test, where you apply a known method to reach an answer; it measures the ability to re-read the structure of the information you are given and find the structure that different cases have in common. The provider says the English ability test tends to be used by companies where the work requires English.

Sources

These are the pages the figures came from. Some are published in Japanese only, and are marked as such — we keep the original titles rather than translating them, so you can match what you find on the official site. Exam rules change; check the official page before you apply.

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