TUTOR: Yes. The point is, you can select someone even a friend who has all the right qualifications degrees certificates, whatever. You can also check that they have a lot of experience that they’ve done the sort of tasks that you want them to do in your office already, in a similar environment. But if they start work and you realize that they just _Q22 don’t get along with everybody else that say they’ve got sharply contrasting views on how something will work well, with the best will in the world, you may be backing a loser.

MURIEL: Wouldn’t it be just a question of company training, though?

TUTOR: Not always. Particularly in a team situation, and I think it’s important to think in terms of that type of working environment. People have to have faith in _Q23 each other’s ability to carry out the task their boss has set them. They have to trust that everyone will do their part of the job, and you can’t necessarily train people for this.

MURIEL: But it’s like trying to find out what someone’s personality is like in a job interview I mean you just can’t do that. Even if you try, you won’t find out what they’re really like until they actually start work.

TUTOR: Well, in most interviews you usually _Q24 ask candidates questions about their hobbies and what they like doing in their spare time that sort of thing so employers are already involved in the practice of well doing part of the task.

MURIEL: But it doesn’t tell you anything. It doesn’t tell you if they’re easy-going or hate smokers or whatever.

TUTOR: Well, arguably it does give you a bit of information about an applicant’s character, but also more and more employers around the world are making use of what are called ‘personality questionnaires’ to help them select new staff and…

MURIEL: What’s it called?

TUTOR: A Personality Questionnaire. They have to be filled out by the candidates sometime during the _Q25 selection procedure, often just before an interview. The idea is actually quite old. Apparently they were used by _Q26 the ancient Chinese for picking out clerks and civil servants, and then later they were used by the _Q27 military to put people in appropriate areas of work. They’ve gained a lot of ground since then and there are about 80,000 different tests available now and _Q28 almost two-thirds of the large employers use them.

MURIEL: Which makes you think that there must be something in them.

TUTOR: That’s right. They ask the sort of questions that you might expect, like do you like working under pressure or are you good at keeping deadlines.

MURIEL: And what if people can see through them and just write what they think the employer wants to see?

TUTOR: Well that’s always a possibility.

MURIEL: And then you can go some way towards finding out whether someone say, forward-looking a go-ahead type of person or resistant to change.

TUTOR: Yes. And there are all kinds of other methods…