I WENT for a job interview the other week. While I was waiting to be
seen, I was asked to provide a sample of my handwriting for 鈥榞raphological
analysis鈥�. I didn鈥檛 want to be written off as a troublemaker, so I complied.
I鈥檓 not very impressed with graphology. Its practitioners can鈥檛 even
tell your gender or which hand you write with, yet they claim to know your
personality from just a few words. Articles on graphology in magazines leave
me with the suspicion that it is simply a matter of plausible generalities
and guesswork. Good heavens, the Queen鈥檚 handwriting shows that she鈥檚 a
warm, caring person; and the Prime Minister鈥檚 shows that she鈥檚 hardworking
and ambitious. I never would have guessed! Yet, when you look at it, why
shouldn鈥檛 employers use graphological analysis to sort candidates? After
all, what about the other criteria they use? An employer might have to sort
through several hundred applicants, most of whom could do the job perfectly
well. The curriculum vitae will have whittled out most of the no-hopers,
but the rest of the pile has to be cut down somehow.
As a candidate, this makes me fret about trivia. Should I use a first-
or second-class stamp? Will the employer assume that a first-class stamp
shows that I鈥檓 keen to get the job, or that I can afford luxuries and so
don鈥檛 need the job? What size and colour of envelope do employers prefer?
White or cheaper buff? The application form itself is full of irrelevancies.
After all, unless the job I鈥檓 after is one that requires essay-writing skills,
what use is the nearly universal question about why I want the job? Of course,
I answer that the job would provide a challenge that I鈥檓 keen to meet, and
so on, but then I know what would happen if I told them that I want the
money and I hate the town I鈥檓 living in. And everybody else knows it too,
so they all write similar platitudes, and consequently the question is of
no value.
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Even the requirement for references is suspect. Maybe the reference
will be ambiguous. It might have been written in a hurry, or by someone
unfamiliar with the language. What about the reference which said 鈥榊ou will
be lucky if you can get this person to work for you鈥�? Naturally, candidates
will do their best to nominate a referee who鈥檒l say something nice about
them. Approaching the previous or current employer may result in a less
favourable reference, but is it any more accurate? Maybe the employer wants
to keep hold of the person, or maybe there鈥檚 some bad feeling that will
cause the employer to be unjust. How can the potential employer judge between
these likely sources of bias in a reference? Has there been any research
on whether references give any real guide to someone鈥檚 ability to do the
job? Then there is the interview, an area fraught with difficulties. The
interviewer is rarely trained in interviewing, and is likely to be more
impressed by irrelevant features such as whether I have a pleasant interview
manner, or a firm enough handshake, or even whether I am well dressed, not
too old (whatever that is), and 鈥榣ook right鈥�, than by whether I could realistically
do the job.
Short of full psychological testing, qualifications and experience are
the only objective way for an employer to make the decision. If several
people have sufficient qualifications, the employer must inevitably use
subjective criteria to decide between them. In which case, why not use graphology?
I鈥檝e just had a chilling thought. Maybe it was submitting to the graphological
analysis that was the test. Maybe the right answer was to have refused to
comply with such mumbo jumbo. Maybe my potential employer has now written
me off as hopelessly unscientific . . .
Alison Brooks is a freelance writer.
