Laying
hands on the unconscious of jobseekers (Seeing through the jobseekers’ façade)
Graphology Supposedly the most
effective tool Human Recourses use to sneak behind jobseekers’ backs.
When employers are looking for
the most suitable person to occupy the vacancy, in addition to the required
education, work experience and required knowledge of the particular field of
work, they also put a lot of importance on the personal characteristics and
skills that a future employee needs to possess. These are not obvious at first glance
therefore Human Recourses are increasingly turning to analysis of jobseekers’
handwriting.
Tina Berlec is a 34-year-old
Human Recourses Management graduate. She is working in HR agency Naton in
Ljubljana as a human recourses specialist – graphologist. After completing
university studies, she specialized in jobseekers’ handwriting analysis
officially known as graphology. The starting point of this method is the
recognition that "different jobs require different personality characteristics
and skills, and graphology enables us to verify their presence or absence in
job candidates" explains Mrs. Berlec. She affirms that there is basically
no personal characteristic that could not be expressed in handwriting. Therefore
the analysis of handwriting does not only disclose those personal characteristics
that a jobseeker would gladly point out by herself, but also discloses her dark
side so to speak, because "we can be 95 per cent certain that during the
process also come out those characteristics that would rather stay hidden or
are usually denied by a jobseeker if asked directly".
Revealing
two pages of A4 format
In order to do the
handwriting analysis, an individual needs to fill two pages of A4 format.
"The paper must be unlined and the candidate must not use a liner or some
other tool to help her write more straightly", explains Mrs. Berlec the
instructions for writing. "The candidate must not worry about the
esthetics of letters, because it is completely irrelevant. She has to write in
a language that she knows best, usually this is native language. Also the
written content is entirely irrelevant." Does that mean, I ask, that a
poor thing needs to invent the topic of the text by herself? "Yes",
answers Mrs. Berlec. "Usually the candidates start with one topic, and
then they continue with another, but on the half way they run out of ideas for
the second topic so they start with the third one and so on". And what is
normally the first topic they use? "In general, they start writing how
they spent their holidays or what they did the previous day". So something
like primary school essays we had to write after the summer holidays on the
first day of school, I conclude.
"My work starts,
when two pages are written," Tina Berlec explains the work of a
graphologist. "With sixteen measurement tools, I measure at least 220
graphic characters in the manuscript. It takes between 12 and 15 working hours
only to do the measures." Graphologist measures the width of the upper and
lower edge of the text (page margins), line spacing, spacing between words and
letters, the size of the letters and ovals (ovals are letters a, o, d, g), then
the upper and lower zone (lower zone are the extensions of the letters that go
under a line if the line would exist), the initial and final moves in words and
so on and so forth. "Just a bar at the letter 't'," explains Mrs. Berlec,
"has over 20 different forms: it can be overtaking, climbing, curved,
thinning, bolding, etc."
Measured graphical
indicators are the basis for calculations of personality characteristics and
skills of the author of the manuscript. "Certain competence requires the
presence of specifically defined indicators," explains Mrs. Berlec. "The
more there are, thus the higher the percentage of the indicator, the more
pronounced the skill." Graphologist classifies the presence of a certain
skill in five different levels, the first level means that a certain competence
is strongly expressed and the fifth that it is expressed very weakly or that it
is almost not present.
Previously described
measurement and quantifying part of the analysis is followed by an interpretation,
which deals with four levels of the candidate's personality: cognitive,
emotional, social and behavioral. Graphology report consists of a summary of
the most strongly expressed strengths and weaknesses of the candidate. Analysis
of the handwriting requires three days of work. A copy of the analysis, which
we saw, consisted of 11 densely typed pages of text and different tables.
Commercialists
and managers
Graphology is used not
only in the selection process but also comes in handy in the reorganization of
the company (as a method of identifying potentials of existing employees and
subsequently as a method of distributing employees to the most appropriate job positions),
in the formation of working groups and for establishing better relations in the
company. According to Mrs. Berlec graphology is most widely used in France,
where it is used by three quarters of all companies. “There are about 70
thousand registered graphologists in France and there is practically no
candidate who is to be employed and has not been tested by a graphologist.
Large companies even have their own graphologists. According to the frequency
of usage of graphology among companies, France is followed by Italy, where this
method is used by a half of all the companies, and a slightly smaller
proportion of companies in Austria, Germany and Scandinavian countries.”
According to 39-year-old
Silvija Kostelec, who is employed in the same HR agency as Mrs. Berlec, in
Slovenia graphology has been in use professionally for only a few years now and
it is most often used by pharmaceutical, retail, telecommunications and
manufacturing companies. Since it is not cheap (analysis costs 890 Euros plus
VAT), it is mainly used for high profile positions such as managers, sales and
marketing professionals. In these cases they do not test all applied
jobseekers, but it is only brought to the table in the last stage of the
selection if they cannot make a final decision between two or three candidates.
According to Mrs. Kostelec
even though graphology is not cheap, represents the best balance between
provided information about the candidate and the resources spent in the
process. According to Mrs. Berlec its advantage lies in “no possibility that
the candidate could influence the results of the analysis, since the candidate
cannot change her own handwriting. She might try to write few lines with
different handwriting, but sooner or later the automatism takes over and the
writing becomes spontaneous.” “It is actually a measurement of the
unconscious,” adds Mrs. Kostelec.
Compared with
graphology, psychological tests build on the information from a second hand so
to speak, because the candidate is giving the answers by herself and the
problem is “that she knows too little about herself and her feelings in order
to answer optimally. Much of the answers can also be false – all that so the
candidate could seem the best fit for the vacancy. Moreover, tests are more or
less known so the candidates can copy them or practice the answers at home
before taking the test.”
But also graphology
has its limits: “Its limit is a facade handwriting, which can be printed
handwriting or excessively decorated, but in any case belongs to a person who
does not wish to reveal her personality. Another limitation is the school handwriting
font. This is the font of persons who never develop their own handwriting, but
they are writing in a school font all their lives. In such cases I tell the
client that I can deliver very little information and that the analysis of such
handwriting is useless,” explains Mrs. Berlec.
Graphology is
characterized by yet another peculiarity: graphologist does not give
recommendations as competencies required for each job differ from the client to
the client. With my expertise in the field of human resources I help the client
to come up with the right set of competencies and that is crucial for the final
decision who is the right candidate, explains graphologist Tina Berlec from Naton human recourse agency.
