But for reasons buried deep in the stars, recent sightings indicate that graphology may be moving out of the kooky closet. Last year the U.S. Labor Department gave it an imprimatur of sorts, promoting the job title of graphologist from the “amusement and entertainment” category to “miscellaneous professionals” (alongside Dianetic counselors and taxidermists). Lately more companies-to the horror of skeptics seem to be turning to handwriting analysis in screening job seekers. And a few firms have even added it to their sales and marketing repertoires. In its latest advertising campaign, The Parker Pen Co. is analyzing the signatures of celebrities, such as Donald Trump (he’s “acquisitive”). Some Michigan real-estate agents recently consulted a graphologist to help decipher which kind of house buyers really want, whether the wife or husband calls the shots and how serious they are. Handwriting analysis, explains Nanette Hebets, owner of two Century 21 offices, is a tool to help “my people read the client better.” Willy Loman, call your office.
What’s behind this upgrade in status? It’s not due to any groundbreaking research. Critics still denounce handwriting analysis as having about as much scientific validity as tea leaves. In Rhode Island last year, a legislator tried unsuccessfully to ban its use in job selection. But companies seem more interested in using it for hiring decisions because, well, not much else is available. Federal law now prohibits lie-detector tests, and reference checks have become all but meaningless among litigation-wary personnel managers. Those tedious personality tests have also become too expensive for many companies to administer. (Graphologists typically charge about $75 an hour.) So rather than delve more deeply into an applicant’s skills, “companies are looking for some magic way of figuring out who to hire,” says Christine Godsil Cooper, chairman of the Employee Rights Committee of the American Bar Association, who frowns on graphology for reasons of privacy.
It’s hard to determine how widespread handwriting analysis has become. If big companies are using it, they aren’t letting on; the practice isn’t that far out of the closet. It is popular in Europe, and some European companies that use it at home without embarrassment are employing it at their U.S. operations-but quietly. Still, some small firms here swear by it. Jane Danduran, president of a small insurance-brokerage agency in Columbus, Ohio, says a handwriting analyst helped her find a good saleswoman with a sense of morality, a quality she feels she can’t readily explore face to face these days. She had the handwriting of the top candidates analyzed, and the winner-who has since done a ,‘super job"-was deemed to have the right traits.
That story may sound convincing, but skeptics consider it more chance than science. “There are individualities in the way we walk, too,” says psychologist Barry Beyerstein. “Not many people say that has to do with character.” Critics also say that the analysis is so unreliable it’s unfair to give people jobs based on the outcome. “What’s next, the Ouija board?” asks Lewis Maltby, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s national workplace rights task force. Graphologists say skeptics just don’t get it. Sheila Kurtz, whose New York firm sports the cute name, A New Slant, says she is now working with 300 companies, including 12 on the Fortune 500 list. Kurtz, who did Trump’s analysis, boasts that she can discern everything from what kind of lighting a person prefers to whether he can get along with the boss. That strikes us as a bit of a stretch but, then again, our writing probably shows we’re not open to new ideas.
