The same move away from entry sheets produced two opposite next steps

Japanese employers are beginning to rethink the entry sheet, or ES, used in graduate recruitment. The more revealing question is not simply whether the form disappears, but what replaces it.

On September 9, 2026, CMIC Holdings announced that four group companies would remove the traditional entry-sheet submission from recruitment for graduates joining in April 2028. Instead, candidates will discuss topics such as self-promotion, what they worked hardest on as students, and their motivation for applying with an AI avatar in a new Talk Entry Selection process.

Rohto Pharmaceutical made a different choice for graduates joining in April 2027. It eliminated entry-sheet-based document screening and made a 15-minute conversation with an HR representative the first selection step through its Entry Meet program. One company placed AI at the conversation interface; the other deliberately placed a person there.

At CMIC, the first change is the input interface, not necessarily the decision maker

The most important sentence in CMIC's announcement comes after the words 'AI avatar.' CMIC says recruiters will review what candidates say and conduct the document screening themselves, and that the system is not intended to have AI evaluate applicants.

In simplified terms, the old model was candidate writes an entry sheet → recruiter reads it. The 2028 model becomes candidate talks with an AI avatar → recruiter reviews the conversation. Based on the information CMIC has made public, there is no basis for saying the company has transferred hiring judgment itself to AI.

A Mynavi 2027 listing for one CMIC Group recruitment course provides a useful earlier-state comparison: applicants took a web aptitude test, submitted an entry sheet, and then proceeded to group and individual interviews. The 2028 announcement therefore represents a real change in the initial information format for the covered recruitment, from a written ES to recorded dialogue.

Rohto responded to the generative-AI era by putting a human at the very front

When Rohto announced Entry Meet in December 2025, it explicitly linked the redesign to a generative-AI problem: AI-written application forms were becoming more homogeneous, making it harder to understand the individuality of each student through conventional document screening alone.

Rohto did not answer that problem with an AI interview. Instead, it chose a 15-minute direct conversation with an HR representative at eight locations nationwide as the first selection step. The company acknowledged that AI interviews can be an effective tool, but chose to begin its own process with face-to-face dialogue.

Rohto later reported that Entry Meet was actually run across the eight locations in January and February 2026 for its 2027 graduate recruitment. This was not merely a future concept; the dialogue-based process was put into operation.

Put side by side, the label 'AI hiring' becomes too crude

At first glance, CMIC looks like the AI case and Rohto the human-centered case. Structurally, however, they share something important. Both companies moved away from relying on a polished entry-sheet text as the primary first-stage signal and toward collecting richer information through conversation.

The difference is who receives that conversation first. Rohto spends human recruiter time at the front of the funnel. CMIC uses an AI avatar as the conversational interface and has recruiters review the resulting content afterward.

That is why saying only that a company has introduced an 'AI interview' can obscure the decision-relevant details. Asking questions, capturing dialogue, summarizing information, scoring candidates and making pass/fail decisions are separate functions. CMIC has publicly drawn a boundary around one of them: AI is used in the conversation, but AI evaluation is not the stated purpose.

For applicants, preparation shifts from 'what should I write?' toward 'what can I explain in my own words?'

The topics CMIC previously collected through the entry sheet include self-promotion, student experiences and motivation for applying. Under Talk Entry, candidates will discuss those kinds of topics in their own words, with the stated aim of making it easier to convey the background of an experience, personal values and changes in thinking that can be difficult to capture within a written form.

The practical change is therefore more specific than 'no entry sheet required.' The early-stage signal moves from a polished written artifact toward the process of explaining one's experience verbally.

Important details remain unknown. CMIC has not publicly specified the exact questions the avatar will ask, the length of the conversation, the detailed evaluation rubric or every connection to later stages. Those gaps should not be filled with speculative 'AI interview hacks.' Applicants should prioritize the official instructions for the actual recruitment cycle when they are released.

Removing the entry sheet is not the same as removing human judgment

These two cases do not show graduate hiring converging on one new standard. They show companies experimenting with different replacements after the traditional ES begins to lose some of its information value.

Rohto answered, in effect, 'meet the person first.' CMIC answered, 'use AI at the conversational entrance, then let people review the content.' There is not enough evidence yet to declare one design superior. The right tradeoff may depend on applicant volume, operating cost and what information an employer is trying to surface.

For future recruiting analysis, it may be more useful to track what replaces the entry sheet and which exact functions AI is assigned — information collection, dialogue, evaluation or decision-making — rather than counting every AI-enabled process as the same kind of AI hiring.

BANSEOG VIEW

Banseog View — The first thing breaking may be the application form, not human judgment

CMIC and Rohto both moved away from an ES-centered entry point, but chose opposite interfaces. Rohto begins with a 15-minute human conversation; CMIC begins with an AI-avatar conversation whose content is then reviewed by recruiters.

Reading both changes only as 'AI replacing recruiters' misses the more immediate shift. What is visibly changing is the format through which companies collect candidate experience and motivation — from polished written submissions toward dialogue.

For applicants, the practical questions are therefore: who is actually evaluating me, what information must I communicate, in what format, and which details of the evaluation have truly been disclosed? Post-ES recruiting currently looks less like one new standard than a market of competing experiments.

SOURCES

Primary sources and references

Banseog does not describe CMIC's Talk Entry process as an AI system that scores or selects candidates. CMIC explicitly says AI evaluation is not its purpose. Exact avatar questions, conversation length and detailed evaluation criteria have not been disclosed in the cited public material, so we do not speculate about them. Rohto removed entry-sheet-based document screening; this should not be generalized to mean that every required document in the application process disappeared.