Hiring and Running the Personnel Departmentà The Write Way

By Anne Conway, M.S.

You can believe everything job candidates tell you about themselves on their first interviews with you. Ha! Job candidates often, (usually?), misrepresent themselves, their capabilities and their actual experience, and it's up to you to find out if they tell the truth or not.

You can't ask why this is so, because the answer is so complicated. People just don't acknowledge their limitations to themselves, so whether they mean to fib or not is not the question to ask.

Perhaps you're like me, and you look for the goodness in others and as a result you only see the positive things you want to see. It's only later that you ask yourself, "Why didn't I see that he would be obnoxious with my clients?"

It's a game. It's a crap shoot at worst and a blessing if it all works out all right at best. If you hire perfectly wonderful employees 80% of the time, I'd like to know how you do it. If you don't, you might like to hear how I do it.

Studies reveal that if you rely solely on interviews to hire you have a 2% chance of hiring the employee you want. It's of interest to note that interviews are used as sole indicators of personality 98% of the time.

You as an employer deserve to have honest, hard-working, honest, punctual, honest and enthusiastic employees. Period.

What is the answer to Hiring Madness? As an employer back in 1978 I found that graphology, handwriting analysis, worked fine for my medium-sized pottery business. After eighteen months of doing it all myself because I lacked hiring skills, with graphology, I hired potters who would throw pots that matched the pictures in my brochures, packers who would pack, and an accountant who was summarily accountable.

This is my first article for PG&L, and I'm thrilled to be here for you. I am here to answer (or be a resource) to your hiring, motivation, and supervisory questions. Please write to me through PG&L or at 1801 Lincoln, #103, Venice, CA 90291 or give me a call at (213) 305-1245.

Happy Father's Day to all you Dads and Congradulations to all you grads!

Anne Conway, M.S., Personnel Consultant and Certified Forensic and Industrial Graphologist, and author of How To Know Everything About Anyone Through Handwriting, Sterling Publications, New York, 1987.