Widespread Use of Graphoanalysis in Applicant Screening

It is a well established fact that 80% of job failures are traceable to personality and only 20% to lack of job skills. Investigative journalists for the New York Times, Dunn's Review, Forties, Wall Street Journal, and other commercia magazines and periodicals have estimated that over 10,000 American companies are using the services of a handwriting analyst.

How Valid is a Personality Profile from Handwriting?

The empirical validity is simply that it works. The laboratory experiments have shown conclusively that a trained analyst can function far beyond the chance factor and well into the 95% range of validity as judged by comparison with other psychological tests.

How Do Equal Opportunity Laws Affect Handwriting Analysis?

The EEOC requires only that any sort of test given to an applicant must:

1) be free of any discriminatory effects regarding age, sex, religion, handicaps, race or national origin.

2) the test must concern qualities that are essential for the particular job.

On both points, graphoanalysis is eminently qualified as a personnel screening procedure. Handwriting does not reflect any physical characteristics of the writer. However, personality is certainly involved in any job ? both in behavior and the aptitudes necessary for the tasks required.