Japanese proficiency testing for hiring

Questions people ask

What level of Japanese should a role require?

B2 is the usual bar for a role where someone has to handle an unscripted conversation in Japanese, which covers most customer support agents, bilingual project coordinators and client service staff. B1 is generally enough for internal or heavily scripted work, and C1 is worth asking for where the wording carries risk: escalations, client management, anything contractual.

Do I need to speak Japanese to use the results?

No. The result is a CEFR level for speaking and for writing, with a score on each of five dimensions and the reasoning behind the level, in a dashboard that is in English. That is the point of it: most teams hiring for Japanese have nobody on the hiring side who could judge it themselves.

Does the candidate have to read the instructions in Japanese?

The questions are in Japanese, because that is what is being tested. The interface around them, the buttons, timers and welcome screen, follows the candidate instead: it opens in their browser's language, in any of the languages we assess, and they can switch it before the clock starts. Somebody being assessed on Japanese should not also be assessed on reading the page.

How long does a Japanese test take, and what does it cost?

Speaking takes about 7 minutes and returns a level on its own. Add writing and the whole assessment is about 20 minutes. It costs from $0.60 a test on annual billing, the same in every language, and you can start free with ten assessments without a card.

Can we use our own Japanese questions?

Yes. You can write your own question library in Japanese, for example one per role, and choose for each assessment whether it draws from yours or from our standard Japanese library. Question types and timings stay fixed, so a level from your library means the same as one from ours.