Number of Candidates for “Top-gun exams,” SHIFT’s Original Internal Career Advancement System Exceeded 1,000 on a Single Month Basis
Aiming at Both Encouraging Career Advancement for Employees and Company Growth by Accelerating Exams

SHIFT Inc. (“SHIFT,” headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan; Masaru Tange, CEO and Representative Director) announced that candidates of “Top-gun exam,” that SHIFT develops as the internal system for career advancement for group-wide employees, exceeded 1,000 on a single month basis, in June 2024.

1. About Top-gun Exams
“Top-gun exams” are exams that SHIFT has been developing since January 2020. They are incorporated into “Top-gun,” the internal system for career advancement. “Top-gun,” the internal system for career advancement is an unique system for the SHIFT Group employees who are willing to improve their skills or their careers. After candidates for each exam acquired knowledge through a plenty of materials and they ensured what they learned through conducting projects, they take an exam. After they passed it, their results will be recognized as an index to assign them in high level projects, which will increase their salaries accordingly. The skill improvement, sales force, and evaluation system work closely together to increase not only salary but also the market value of the employees themselves. Moreover, SHIFT is able to continuously train and retain highly motivated, high-value-added personnel. In these ways, “Top-gun,” the internal system for career advancement is a win-win system.

At the start of the exam, it was developed for only those who are trying to increase their unit price to 0.8 million yen, but now it is possible to aim for unit price of 2.5 million yen at maximum through “Top-gun exam,” as its scope has been expanded to include executives, managers, and associates. An environment has been established in which motivated employees can maximize their self-growth.

The number of candidates for “Top-gun exam” has been steadily increasing year by year. While the annual number of candidates for FY2020, when the exam started, was 315, that for FY2023 has increased by approximately 8.7 times to 2,745 and in June 2024, that of a single month exceeded 1,000. As the average number of candidates for a year of an external exam on software testing is about 4,000, exceeding 1,000 in a single month demonstrates that many employees are attracted by the “Top-gun,” the internal system for career advancement and are actively working to improve their skills.

2. Future Prospects
SHIFT continuously aims to further promote the “Top-gun,” the internal system for career advancement in order to further increase the unit price for engineers and the value of services. In addition, SHIFT will create an environment in which diverse human resources can play an active role by accelerating “Top-gun exam” and continuing to promote career advancement and skill enhancement to group-wide employees.

SHIFT actively employs non-IT talents (1,309 employees in FY2023). Even non-IT talents can be outstanding “IT talents” in SHIFT by passing CAT test*, the recruitment exam originally developed by SHIFT. Moreover, these non-IT talents will be able to grow into high-value-added ones through “Top-gun exam.” As the environment for recruiting IT personnel gets intense, SHIFT believes that creating such a system is one of the key strengths that SHIFT can continue to acquire excellent personnel, and at the same time, is one of the social solutions for the shortage of IT personnel.

SHIFT aims to quickly achieve SHIFT3000, a medium-term growth strategy that aims to achieve net sales of ¥300 billion by FY2028 – FY2030, and will focus even more on human resource development to lead to further corporate growth.

*“Top-gun,” the internal system for career advancement and Top-gun exam is the internal system for employees of the SHIFT Group.
* An exam developed by SHIFT on its own. It has a pass rate of 6% that selects those who have the necessary skills for software testing, regardless of whether they are knowledgeable or experienced in the programming or IT industries.

3. Impact on Financial Performance
The SHIFT Group expects that this achievement would have no material impact on its financial results and financial condition.