Penultimate shortlisting

By ASHLEY CAMPBELL

At first glance, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the job ad. Advertising a sales position it said all the usual things - qualities you'd need to succeed and what the company would give you in return.

But there was definitely something different about the address for applications - a business PO box number only, no email address included. And it asked for applications "in your own handwriting".

With recruitment consultants estimating more than 90 per cent of applications now arrive by email, it was different, to say the least.

But a call to the company's managing director confirmed just why. Yes, he said, he did use a graphologist, or handwriting analyst, as part of the recruitment process. After using other, more common, tools to draw up a shortlist, the letters of the final three or four would be examined to see what they revealed.

The sales-based company is, for this country, unusual - James Cozens, New Zealand president of the Recruitment and Consulting Services Association, is not aware of any recruitment companies that regularly use graphology.

"If it is used, then the people who are using it don't want to say," he says.

It's entirely different in some countries. French job applicants expect their handwriting to be analysed as a matter of course. Estimates of how widely graphology is used there vary, but the European Union says it's part of the selection process for up to 50 per cent of companies and 80 per cent of recruitment consultants. It's also reported to be common in Germany and Switzerland.

Cross the English Channel and the scepticism kicks in. Again, estimates of the percentage of firms that use it vary, but they never hit double figures.

Even so, in February the British Institute of Graphology claimed in the Guardian newspaper that more than 3000 British companies regularly checked potential employees' handwriting.

New Zealand graphologists - most of whom have other jobs to pay the rent - will tell you that sceptical businesses are missing out.

"A good business should be using all the tools at its disposal to do a proper job," says Allan Kirk, who's studied graphology for 30 years and says his individual clients often use it to help decide on a career path.

Kirk and other graphologists claim that by looking at a page or two of an individual's handwriting (and yes, they do want a page or two, not just a few words hurriedly scribbled on a scrap of paper) they can tell you all sorts of things that are hard to judge in a normal job interview.

Is your seemingly ideal candidate a rampant individualist or a team player? Are they calm under stress, introverted or extroverted, leaders or followers? Will you motivate them by appealing to their emotion, intellect or bank balance? What's their IQ? Graphologists claim that with good enough samples they can tell you all of this - and more.

Auckland graphologist Paul Shallard says there's "no better way" to find out everything because "you can't hide anything on a page of handwriting".

Let's take, for example, how a job applicant copes with stress. When it's down to a shortlist, Shallard prefers to have two handwriting samples taken at different times of the week - say Monday morning and Friday afternoon. The differences between the two samples will be revealing, he says.

"Some people might write very much the same under pressure, other people will be more emotional and more subject to their feelings."

Some traits, says Shallard, jump off the page - abusive, overbearing behaviour, for example, shows as a very strong sign. Other traits show up more weakly and a good graphologist will look for corroborating signs. It is, he says, a bit like going for a medical diagnosis.

"A pain in the stomach can be one of 40 different things. A doctor rules out 35 of them in 10 minutes by talking to and examining you."

So what do graphologists look at? Just about everything, it seems. As well as how you form individual letters, they examine the pressure and slant of your writing, where you start on the page, how close to the margins you write, the space you leave between lines and the relationship between letters.

Whether it actually works or not depends, obviously, on who you talk to.

The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association has published on the internet a 15-page rebuttal of graphologists' claims.

For example, most graphologists say they do not look at the content of a sample, only the handwriting style. But, says the BCCLA, "a job application letter used by the graphologist invariably includes a goldmine of information about the writer.

"It is almost certainly the case, therefore, that the information contained in such a letter can be, and is, used by the graphologist in constructing a personality profile of the applicant".

The sales employer the Herald spoke to has used graphology for about five positions in the past five years and says he would rate it as about 80 per cent accurate. "I wouldn't suggest it's conclusive, but it's another piece of the jigsaw."

He never makes his decision based purely on the analysis, but uses it for key roles, along with sales success profiling and good, old-fashioned personal judgment. More often than not, he says, the analysis will reinforce his judgment rather than change his mind.

If you accept graphologists' claims of what they can tell from a person's handwriting, the decision to use their services raises some privacy issues.

Two graphologists' analyses of samples provided by the Herald referred to intimate and family relationships, abuse and traits that, quite frankly, most people would not want discussed with their employer.

You could avoid this difficulty by giving the graphologist a job description and list of job-related characteristics necessary for success, asking them to report only on those characteristics.

Kirk and Shallard both agree that subjects should give their permission to have their handwriting analysed. Kirk goes so far as to say he would not analyse handwriting if the subject didn't agree.

And, although he has never received a complaint on the issue, Privacy Commissioner Bruce Slane says employers wanting to avoid a complaint should definitely tell job applicants how their handwriting sample will be used.

The employer mentioned above follows this rule, telling all shortlisted subjects what tests they're expected to undergo, including handwriting analysis.

But his final choice, once he's down to two or three subjects, is ususally determined by something much less complicated.

"I ask myself, would I have this person in my house? Would I have them at the dinner table?"


Alan Kirk

Mindscript.net

British Columbia Civil Liberties Association position paper

Malcolm McLeod