One of Japan's biggest banks is throwing away the cookie cutter when it comes to hiring fresh graduates.
Realizing it was recruiting "exactly the same" types of people each year, Mizuho Financial Group Inc. now wants to hire more creative thinkers who can help it meet challenges such as the technological upheaval facing banks, said Shinya Uda, a human resources manager at Japan's third-biggest lender. That includes science majors, foreign nationals and people who are looking to work for technology giants such as Google-owner Alphabet Inc.
"I told my team to go out and find people who aren't interested in finance," Uda said in an interview. "It was kind of an impossible request, but I said, 'Find me someone who's weighing up going to Google.' "