The Write Event

Handwriting analysis—a valuable adjunct tool in employee selection

Doing business analyses has been a favorite part of my business for many years. Having a part in helping employers recognize the talents of people on staff as well as new candidates they are considering brings me real satisfaction. The company makes the final decision on hiring and promoting and the handwriting report makes it easier to select a good match for a position. The applicants give consent and often read their reports, which I encourage.

Here is an article about a colleague.
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Graphologists Help Screen Job Applicants For Companies

By TAMMY JOYNER
Published on 10/17/2004

Atlanta— If eyes are the window to the soul, handwriting may very well be the open door — or trap door — to a job candidate's personality.

The curly q's. Those flourishing loops and slopes. Even the way you dot your i's — or don't — reveals more about your character and integrity than any resume, background check, job interview or — in the case of this election year — 90-minute television debate.

“Handwriting speaks volumes about who we are — our passions, strengths, weaknesses and personality,” said Sheila Kurtz, a veteran handwriting expert in New York. “Handwriting analysis is probably the best nondiscriminatory assessment measure. You don't have to know a person's origin, gender or age.” Kurtz has written four books on handwriting and has built a client list over the past two decades that includes the New York Jets, the Young Presidents' Organization and the CIA.

She has spent the past two decades helping companies find the best executives, cops track down criminals and lovers know for sure if they've found their true love. Kurtz has even used her skills to delve into the real personas of pop star Britney Spears, basketball great Karl Malone, and real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump.

“It's like being a Sherlock Holmes.”

Handwriting analysis, also known as graphology, is a highly specialized social science, much like psychology, that has been studied and used throughout Europe for the last century. The subject is taught in many European schools.

As U.S. companies become increasingly concerned with global security and the effects of corporate scandal, graphology is among the tools they are using to get more “candid and spontaneous” information about job candidates, said Les Hough, director of the Usery Center for the Workplace at Georgia State University. Its popularity and acceptance has been particularly evident among top-level jobs, where integrity is vital but often goes unchecked.

With the stroke of a pen, Kurtz is able to tap into a person's thought process and emotional state and learn a lot about their achievements and communication skills. Other details like the type of pen, the thickness of the point and ink color are just as revealing and important.

Kurtz calls the process “brainwriting” instead of handwriting because it's essentially “a graphic manifestation of a person's thought patterns and behaviors that gives us a glimpse into the subconscious mind.”

Think of a dashboard on a car — it's neither good nor bad, just informative.

“There are 300 traits of personality,” Kurtz said.

Handwriting analysis isn't just limited to the English language, Kurtz said. She mainly focuses on the Latin-based languages, although Chinese and Japanese can be analyzed as well. But she concedes they're harder.

“In Europe, graphology is an accepted science in terms of hiring candidates,” said Robert Silberman, vice president of marketing at Trumbull-based Pilot Pen, the nation's third-largest pen company. “It's a replacement to personality and character testing.”

Personality tests have become so common in the United States that the practice is now a $400 million industry. Almost a third of U.S. companies use such tests. Yet despite the use, personality tests aren't always foolproof or reliable, and they're often intrusive, which, in turn, can cost employers millions of dollars a year, according to Annie Murphy Paul, author of a new book about personality testing called “The Cult of Personality.”

By contrast, handwriting analysis has been known to save companies bundles in time, money and morale because they've picked the right person at the right time, Kurtz said. While people may change over time, their traits essentially remain the same, Kurtz said.

Handwriting analysis also can reveal other traits.

Global security threats, corporate scandals and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have forced companies to take a serious look at handwriting in conjunction with the traditional approaches — resumes, background checks and job interviews — to finding the right people for jobs.

Some U.S. firms now have graphologists on staff. Others outsource. Pilot Pen may very well be the first U.S. company to put a handwriting expert in its executive suites. Kurtz was recently named chief graphology officer. As CGO, Kurtz will be helping Pilot Pen find compatible employees and build sales teams as well as serve as a company spokeswoman on the handwriting of notable people.

While some of the more crafty and practiced job applicants can bluff their way through many interviews and lie-detector tests, handwriting is essentially liar-proof. That's something many police departments, the CIA and jilted lovers have discovered.

“Unless you're an expert, you can't change your handwriting,” Silberman said.

Value and uses of handwriting analysis: how much effort does it take to learn it?

Here is one woman's perspective on handwriting analysis. It is a bit cursory but it makes the point that you can learn a lot from the study of the subject. As to her reference 'to get a book' please be aware there are a lot of very bad books out there. I too checked out many before I took on a serious study and found most to be contradictory and a 'believe it because I said so' approach.

The evaluation of handwriting is based on sound principles, common sense and and careful reasoning according to a system. Intuitive perception is a help but the science is not based on what the analyst's gut-feeling indicates. It can be a nudge in the right direction but measurements have to support the conclusion. I will soon share with you what options are out there and what I would recommend if you want to undertake a serious study. Would a basic teleclass based on some of the information published here be of interest you?

Without question, I believe that having this skill will give you a clear insight into people, especially those who seem hard to read. I also feel that it encourages a kinder look at others whose exterior belies the struggles they are fighting inside. It does not involve therapy to fix the problems but can provide a starting point to get help.

I analyzed a woman's writing without having much background on her beforehand. She was obviously troubled. She was living in the past and couldn't seem to move on. In her 'thank you' letter to me she said that the analysis had pointed out things that had "taken years of therapy to uncover. My therapist was impressed when she read it."

As for choosing compatible people as friends, work partners or mates? It is a great tool to use before getting deeply involved. Can things work out with people very different from you? Yes, if you not only understand the differences but come to appreciate them as gifts instead of something to criticize.

Anyway, I wish it were as easy to analyze handwriting as this article writer implies. Nonetheless, learning something about it, as I intended to convey through this blog, can be a head start.

The subject on Signatures is the most popular category chosen to click on here. Signatures yield the least amount of information about someone. Remember that the signature is but a calling card of how writers seek to be known. Go deeper than that if you really want to understand others. The best about them is hidden between the lines and also within them. Do pay attention to a pronounced difference between the style of a person's regular writing and the style of their signature. If they are congruent it is an affirming indication you are seeing the real person; if it is not, you are not getting the whole story of the person.

And now, the article.
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THE BRAZEN CAREERIST- Read the writing: Loops and squiggles tell a lot

Published October 14, 2004, in issue 0341 of The Hook

BY PENELOPE TRUNK

Handwriting analysis is no longer for freaks and psychics. Multinational companies hire handwriting analysts to understand personality traits of prospective job candidates. Character traits that matter during the hiring process-- creativity, self-esteem, leadership, and optimism, for example-- are revealed in one's handwriting.

You should learn how to analyze your co-workers' handwriting and your own to give yourself an edge at work. I have found that the basics of analysis are quick and easy to learn. Getting along with other people and knowing yourself are essential pieces to career success, and analyzing people's handwriting can help you speed up the process. Here are some examples:

Get along with people better

Knowing someone's personality traits is invaluable for collaborating with and motivating that person. Depending on that person to tell you his or her own traits is risky. Most people don't know themselves well enough; even focus group leaders don't bother to ask people directly what they like anymore.

Fortunately, with very little expertise, you can use handwriting to evaluate someone's dominant traits. For example, someone with a signature that leaves a lot of space between first and last names is not going to be an intimate, emotional person, so you can stop trying to forge that kind of relationship. If the first and last names overlap, that person is relationship-oriented and probably wants more than long-distance management from you.

Make better career choices

You can also use handwriting analysis to gauge your own dominant traits. Then you can figure out which career is best for the type of person you are.

For example, you can learn what sort of handwriting is appropriate for the job you aim for, and compare your own handwriting to that standard. Angular is appropriate for a programmer and inappropriate for a sales person. Perfect, schoolteacher writing reveals the need to establish order and would be a bad sign if you aspired to the freethinking required of an inventor.

Handwriting really does reflect your true self. So if you discover your penmanship does not reflect traits necessary for the career you have in mind, ask yourself if you are even in the right field.

Improve your image

Handwriting is like clothing. Your audience cannot help but evaluate your message by what it looks like. You wouldn't wear sweatpants to an important meeting, and you wouldn't wear a ball gown, either. Take the same care with your handwriting.

For example, in a note to your boss, if your letters are rigid and perfect you will project the image of someone who is anal, inflexible, and non-visionary. Fine if you are an accountant, not fine if you want to be CFO. If you scrawl a quick, barely legible note to your boss, you seem to be more involved in your own ideas than in the people around you. You might project the image of an eccentric artistic genius, but if you aspire to management, write more legibly.

You also project self-esteem in your signature. I am shocked at how many people have a very tiny signature. You need no training in handwriting analysis to know that this is an expression of low self-esteem. Even if you feel like you want to disappear, force yourself to sign your name like you want people to see it.

To all you doubters, test the theory. Get a handwriting analysis book from the library. You only need to skim a few pages to get an idea of what to look for. Then take handwriting samples from people you know well and evaluate them. I bet you'll find the rules of analysis depict an accurate view of that person.

When you add handwriting analysis to your career arsenal, start out small-- look at different loops and slopes and figure out what they mean. After a while, you'll find that handwriting analysis actually feels intuitive; and like all good insights, once you have it, it'll seem obvious, and acting on results of handwriting analysis will make as much sense to you as it does to those multinational companies.

Handwriting is a projection of you

Here is an article I came across. It reminded me of the encouragement from Julia Cameron (Author of the "Artist's Way" and other books) to write "morning pages"—three full pages of longhand writing early in the day. Freeflow writing opens you up to what is happening inside you and loosens you up in many surprising ways. Give it a try. Write as fast as you can without concern for neatness. ______________________________________________________________________________________

Saturday, August 28, 2004

Lacking cursive? Curses!

from the Morning Sentinel

A job-hunting friend was perturbed when she was asked to hand-write a paragraph at a job interview.

"They probably wanted to analyze it," she said darkly. What were they looking for -- uncrossed T's as a sign of sloppiness? Or worse: psychotic tendencies revealed by a penchant for narrow loops? She fretted that the exercise wasn't easy, because "I don't do much writing anymore."

Few of us do. We compose on computers at work and school. E-mail has all but replaced the handwritten letter. Even checks are fading away, as debit cards become more popular.

Once, I would have seen this as a good thing. My struggles with the Palmer Method were long and painful. My grade-school teachers could not understand how I could spell, read and do long division with ease -- but not write a legible line.

I couldn't figure it out either. I just wanted penmanship to go away.

But somewhere along the way, I overcame my affliction. I suspect it was a mild learning disability, a disconnect between hand and brain. My handwriting can now be read, and even, on occasion, admired. Now I'm afraid that, because of technology, penmanship really will disappear.

I'd hate to see that happen. As a writer, I know my thoughts, and the way I express them, often depend on my mode of writing. I wouldn't say that I have better thoughts when holding a pen. They are just different from the ones that flow through my mind as I sit in front of a computer screen. I've also discovered that if I become stuck while writing at a computer, all I have to do is grab paper and pen. The writing flows, somehow stimulated by the movement of my hand. If I never wrote by hand again, I would leave half my creative self behind.

Handwriting is, moreover, a practical skill. My right hand is always with me -- thank goodness! I do not need to turn it on or boot it up. Handwriting is a portable skill, does not require electricity and, when performed on the banks of a lake, does not disturb loons. The hand-writer fears no power outage or computer meltdown.

As today's savvy employers realize, handwriting is an expression of personality. We can try to individualize ourselves by word-processing in Baskerville Semibold or Herculanum, but that's basically just an acknowledgment that we have access to fancy fonts. I prefer the letters I used to receive from friends, the ones that started out in precise script and ended up as floppy scribbling. I could see their laughter and joy sprawling across the page.

I can see my young self too, in the crabbed penmanship of my childhood journals. It's not a pretty picture, but it is a true one. I suffered the indignity of my ugly handwriting. I was frustrated by bad grades in penmanship, but the harder I tried, the worse my P's and Q's looked. Still, I wrote, I guess because I thought I had something to say. Little did I know I was expressing myself, not just in content, but form.

In contrast, the sheets of typeface I now print out are clean, neat and attractive -- and could have been written by anyone.

I fear something essential to our humanity is being lost, yet I'm fascinated by the thought that employers who wouldn't hire computer illiterate applicants now want them to demonstrate their penmanship skills. This trend strikes me as Orwellian, but maybe I should see it as a sign of hope.

Perhaps my -- and humankind's -- hard-won ability to write a good hand will not, after all, become obsolete.

Liz Soares is a free-lance writer and author of "All for Maine: The Story of Gov. Percival P. Baxter".

"So what good is knowing this stuff anyway?"

Someone just presented the question, "Beyond satisfying my curiosity, what good is knowing this?" Hmm. It is entertaining, perhaps. Interesting, I hope. And if you read the posts more than once, and if you follow the discussion, it just might help you capture a new perspective of yourself. (Have you learned anything new about yourself so far?) It might help you figure out how you come across to others, which is especially useful if that has not always been as you expected—assuming it concerns you. Some people couldn't care less. They say, "Take me as I am; I am who I am and that's that." I guess that's okay too.

I think a lot of people care quite a bit. Down deep isn't everyone seeking to be better understood, be loved—to feel loved? Many tell me they struggle to build solid relationships. They are on the hunt to find the "right" person for them. Or figure out how to deal with the one they've got. So, what good is understanding some of this handwriting analysis stuff? (I am saying "some" because this can never be an in-depth coverage. It is not intended to be. You will not be qualified to be a handwriting analyst reading just this.) I guarantee it will help you see a lot about yourself. I hope it will make it easier to target your strengths and use them on purpose. When I ask individuals to name their assets they rarely can do it. I mean clinically, clearly and quickly. Can you? It helps to be able to do that.

Learning a little could mean seeing if your job or choice of occupation matches the best you have to offer; maybe you will see some talent you have or a particular way of mentally processing you aren't putting to good use. Maybe you will decide to begin to do something you love as a hobby. Maybe you will understand your liabilities and stop focusing inordinate time and energy lamenting them. That's a lot of maybes.

As for future topics: I am anxious to show you some points about how your thinking process shows up in your handwriting. Not what you think about; no mind-reading here. But rather, clues about the mental patterns you use to learn new things and how well you analyze and problem-solve. If you need to train or instruct someone who has a different style or approach from yours you might find some ways to bridge the gap. Or if you are on the receiving end, once you know the way you need things explained you can communciate that instead of feeling frustrated.

Some people know but cannot teach. (Often called "managers.) They don't know they don't know. Only the people they are supposed to teach know they don't know. When communication breaks down and the learners-to-be just don't "get it" guess who goes? You know.

Never throw away a handwritten envelope

Since this is a time of year when many people receive a lot of hand-addressed mail it is an ideal time to collect some samples of writing. The advantage of keeping envelopes is that the text (your name and address) is the same on every single one. You will be looking at the same words each time you want to compare to copybook, or something this weblog includes as a handwriting indicator. You know some of those already, such as, zones and baselines. You could use the back of the envelope to record your impressions of each writing and, of couurse, you have the writing on the letter or card enclosed to consider also. The more writing you have the better.

If you have previously executed writing from some of those same people you have another interesting challenge. You can look to see if the writing style and indicators are different when you compare them.
This is a good way for a beginner to start a sample collection.

The question of ethics among other points

Wow, there are a lot of books on personality profiling and typing and many systems around to do it! I think that handwriting analysis is a great adjunct tool because of its major advantage over some other methods. The subject needs to do only one thing and that is provide an adequate sample of handwriting. There are no 'test' questions to answer. No personal opinions or self-appraisals are part of the process. There is no way to skew the outcome. An unnatural handwriting (when someone tries to make it prettier) looks inhibited to the analyst; it looks different because it is not natural inhibition. The lack of spontaneity looks contrived since the best about a person comes out when the writing is free-flowing.

As to appraising ourselves? It is very hard to be personally objective—especially if there are traits that distort self-perception, such as: repression, vanity, rationalization, sensitiveness-to-criticism, low self-esteem, exaggeration. Those are only a few possible ones. If any of those characteristics show up in a strong degree it is likely that a person will either over or under emphasize reality.

I also ask for the subject's consent, even for business assessments. That's for ethical reasons. Handwriting is considered to be a form of body language, according to some court rulings of the past; it is out in the open so it is available for analysis just like a person's mannerisms. Still, I want the person to know and authorize it because it is not a superficial matter. Therefore, I don't do third-party private analyses. In the case of a private analysis the individual report is sent to each writer, (unless a minor) even for a compatibility report. Then they share the personal information with each other if they choose to.

What handwriting does not reveal.

There is no magic to this. It is hard work to learn how to analyze writing and takes a long time to get really proficient. In the past, when I have told people what I do the reactions have been funny. Men seem to get quiet as a rule. Rarely very curious at first and more often skeptical, which I understand. Women often say, "Ooooo, that must be fun!" as their voices go up 4 octaves. Yep, it is fun. but it is not something I do as a matter of course every time I see a piece of writing or when I get a letter from someone. I just read and enjoy it. I don't start measuring and analyzing.

Sometimes, it has been handy to have the skill. Years ago, we had a dishwasher go out and we called a repair service. It happened to be that the owner of the business came that day while my husband was home. He fixed it for a whopping charge and left a recommendation in writing that we had better 'buy a new machine soon.' His company also sold them, by the way. Hmmm. It was a minor repair so something didn't set well with me. I looked carefully at his writing and decided we would not be doing business with him again. That machine went on for another 5 years.

Okay, this post is about what handwriting does not reveal. Here goes: there's no way to know for sure which hand the person writes with, (no, all left-slanters are not left-handed) gender, (some men write soft formations and some women have very angular writing.) You cannot tell race, religion, or profession. And—it most certainly does not foretell the future. However, it does uncover mental and emotional habits, which may indicate a propensity or potential to avoid or act out certain behaviors. And if a person is strongly influenced by the past it shows evidence of that pull backwards but not the specific reasons that caused it.

So, while handwriting has been termed, "brainwriting" the analysis of it does not involve mind-reading.