Mizuho shuns finance hires as it zeroes in on Google hopefuls

The bank’s recruiting policy mimics big US banks.

Bloomberg reports that Mizuho Financial Group is increasingly shunning traditional recruits with background in finance as it aims to nab talent with greater technological expertise in line with changing business environments that place premium on digital.

“I told my team to go out and find people who aren’t interested in finance,” said Shinya Uda, a human resources manager at Mizuho. “It was kind of an impossible request, but I said ‘Find me someone who’s weighing up going to Google.”’

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This mimics the recruiting policy of global US banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co who are also diversifying away from finance graduates to adapt their workforce to the tech-powered changes. Fellow Japanese lender megabank Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. has also adjusted its recruiting plans to target more science and technology graduates.

“It’s a recruiting policy that’s in line with the times,” said Nana Otsuki, chief analyst at Monex Inc. in Tokyo.

The bank sent out around 70,000 copies of a recruitment brochure bearing the slogan, “We want to meet people who aren’t Mizuho types” as the bank aims to hire about 400 graduates for the year starting April 2019.

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