OpenWork Co., Ltd. President and CEO Haruki Osawa

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OpenWork Co., Ltd. President and CEO Haruki Osawa(Haruki Osawa)

■ Profile

After graduating from the University of Tokyo Graduate School, he joined Link and Motivation. After working as a manager in the organizational and human resources consulting business for small and medium-sized venture companies, he became the head of the planning department and was responsible for launching new businesses, business management, and human resources. In November 2019, he became the executive vice president of OpenWork. In April 2020, he became the representative director and president. In December 2022, the company was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market.

In this day and age, work styles are becoming more diverse and it is important to take responsibility for one's own career. OpenWork Co., Ltd., which operates the review site "OpenWork," used by more than half of job-seekers, is committed to the quality of reviews and is deeply committed to valuing its users. We spoke to the company's president, Haruki Osawa, about what goes on behind the scenes at OpenWork, which continues to grow, and his thoughts on job-seekers.

■ The world will not change unless people and organizations change

When I was a university student, I studied abroad in the UK and researched desert greening. While doing so, I realized how difficult it would be to make this a reality due to legal and ethical issues, and at the same time, I keenly felt that getting people involved was important in order to change the world. This made me want to do research that would allow me to collaborate with society and the country, something that would give me a tangible feel.
After that, I went on to graduate school at the University of Tokyo, and while I was doing research, I also worked part-time at a company that provided urban planning consulting services. Through this work, I felt even more strongly that while anyone can create armchair theories, the world will not change unless people and organizations change.
I first encountered OpenWork when I was involved in launching a new business in the venture capital business at my previous job. The more I was involved, the more I felt the potential of OpenWork, and instead of doing things half-heartedly, I wanted to fully commit to OpenWork, so I decided to change jobs. I started out as a sales manager, then managed human resources, public relations, and corporate planning, and was promoted to vice president after my achievements in launching a new business called "OpenWork Recruiting" were recognized, a position I hold to this day.

■We live in an age where people are responsible for their own careers. Open work is what's needed in this era.

If I had to sum up what attracted me to OpenWork and led me to decide to change jobs, it would be the fact that they pursue and operate a user-first service. Even now, I receive words of gratitude from users every day, and it really made me realize that "we are making what our users really want." While many services have a service model that pursues their own profits, OpenWork puts the most importance on "whether the information is valuable to users," and has established itself as a site that publishes and provides reviews and evaluation scores after reviewing them, which I now feel is something that will definitely be necessary in the future.
In today's world, an increasing number of companies are abolishing seniority-based promotion, and there's no guarantee that your salary will increase if you endure and stay at the same company. We live in an age where you have to choose your own career, rather than entrusting it to the company. In this climate, I feel it's important to be open about the reality of companies, so that individuals can proactively choose the company they want to work for, rather than relying on websites that only provide information that is advantageous to companies.

■ Creating a situation where people are drawn to companies that are run with integrity

The most important thing we value in running our business is the "soundness" of our review information. Specifically, we have raised the bar for submitting reviews by requiring them to be at least 500 characters long and restricting copy-and-paste. Furthermore, after submission, all posts are mechanically reviewed using AI, and then manually reviewed by trained specialist staff. The unique guidelines used during this manual review are regularly revised by a specialist review team that includes lawyers. Naturally, this incurs costs, but for OpenWork, the soundness of our reviews is vital, so we are thoroughly committed to ensuring their integrity.
We also operate a recruitment service called "OpenWork Recruiting," so companies that post job openings are our customers. However, even if a client company requests that they remove a review that is inconvenient for them or improve their rating score, we will not respond to such requests. Our first priority is to provide valuable information to our users, not to prioritize the company.
Thanks to these efforts, the number of users and reviews continues to grow year by year. In the past, company HR and management considered the service somewhat of a "nuisance" because it leaked employee reviews, but as a result of our continued efforts, companies have started using OpenWork Recruiting to post job openings, saying that it lets users know the real situation of their company. We feel that more and more companies are taking their company reviews and review scores seriously. With the theme of "Turning reviews into recruiting power," we want to create a situation where people are attracted to companies that are honestly run and evaluated by their employees, rather than by their reputation.

■ People who thrive at OpenWork are those who have the drive to learn and be self-motivated

Our company is a small but elite organization with around 80 employees. Just because we are a listed company doesn't mean that we have in place training programs, but rather we have people who are self-studying and self-motivated who thrive.
For example, our top data scientist continues his research even now, participating in external research institutes and lectures. Such people have the worldview they want to create and learn on their own, without needing to be taught by anyone. I would like to work with people like that who have the driving force of "it's fun, I want to become like this."

■Get to know others and find a job and build a career that satisfies you

First of all, please make sure to use OpenWork!! This is because we want you to make your own decisions and conduct a job search that you are satisfied with. As you go through your job search, you will come across a lot of information on techniques for getting a job offer. Of course, this information is important, but if you become too caught up in it, your job search will become one where the goal is to get a job offer, and you will choose a company based on someone else's criteria, and your job search will not be based on your own criteria. However, OpenWork does not have the answers, it only provides hints. We hope that you will use the hints to make your own decisions and conduct a job search that you are satisfied with.
I believe that it is just as important for job-seekers to know others as it is to know themselves. While the COVID-19 pandemic has made it difficult for people to connect with others, confining yourself to your own narrow world can prevent you from noticing the options available to you. By using employee reviews as a reference, you can come into contact with the values ​​of many different people and feel confident in your job search, knowing that "among these, I made this choice."

Student Newspaper Online January 16, 2023 Interview by Misaki Otsuka, 4th year student at Tokai University