AS LONG AS they're not reading the tea leaves...

What would you do if you went for a job, and the HR person said one of the criteria for selection was a favourable analysis of your handwriting?

In most of the world, the use of graphology in recruitment is marginal. But in France - despite an appreciable decline of writing in recent years thanks to computers - the technique is proving remarkably resilient.

Reliable figures are hard to come by. Graphologists themselves say that between 50% and 75% of companies make some use of hand-writing analysis, even if it is only occasional.