09Dec2004

When it was reported last week that university graduates on Work & Income skill courses were being asked to draw a pig as part of a personality test and spend thirty minutes practising handshakes many thought that the whole thing was a hoax. Well it wasn’t. In fact the test went further than that. Some graduates were given sacks full of square pegs and were then asked to try and fit them into an office quadrangle lawn pocked with round holes. Then there were the egg and spoon or three-legged sack races but I don’t want to refer to them. Let’s talk about the pigs. The job seekers were handed a sheet of pink paper and a pen and told to draw a pig. How and where on the paper they drew the pig was analysed and from this analysis a candidate’s personality was able to be assessed. The drawing unleashed such secrets as a candidate’s analytical skills, ability to socialize, empathize and if necessary cauterize. I’d come across similar tests myself. They always seemed to involve animals. At one of my first job interview years ago I was left alone in a brightly lit room given a paper tail and asked to pin it on a large cardboard cutout of a donkey which was hanging on the wall. This you will readily recognise was a variation on the old party game for young kids “pin the tail on the donkey”. You remember how you were blindfolded, turned around a couple of times, then you made a stab at the wall where you thought the donkey’s tail should be. If you were successful of pinning the tail within one metre of the donkey’s hindquarters you were usually rewarded with a bag of jellybeans or some similar confectionery. It was pretty much the same at my job interview. Except I wasn’t blindfolded. And there were no jellybeans. The donkey was as large as life in front of me. Because there was no blindfold I realised that I had been set a trap. Employment psychologists work this way. So I promptly pinned the tail on the donkey’s nose. Well I came out with flying colours. The psychologist’s remarks relating to this test said that I had shown initiative formed with a considerable degree of lateral thinking but above all a real urge to push the boundaries and go outside the square. To this day I have difficulty looking donkeys in the eye without thinking that their tails are in the wrong place.

So why did the WINZ people choose a pig rather than a donkey? It’s a physiological fact that the intestinal tract of a pig, in fact any of the pig’s internal organs are almost identical to ours. There’s a great deal of similarity between pigs and humans. Perhaps this is best bought out by the analogy of pigs in the trough and politicians feeding on the public purse. So how were the drawings assessed? If you drew your pig at the top of the page you’re an optimist. At the bottom a pessimist. Four legs showed that you were secure and stubborn. Less than four revealed pathetic insecurities. The bigger the ears the better listener you are.

The Wellington Regional Commissioner for Work and Income said that the test was used as an “ice-breaker”. “I don’t know how scientific it is but it’s a test used by many companies”. Sounded to me like buying a pig with a poke. “What about this handshake ritual?” “We at Work and Income put a lot of stead into handshakes. In fact most of the deals we conclude with our clients are done on a simple handshake. I know we’re a bit old fashioned in that regard but to us a handshake is everything. I know high flyers and the cursory slap and hug like you get after a game of rugby are in vogue but there’s nothing to beat the firm grasping of the hand, the direct eye contact and in particular not wiping your hand after that contact.”

If this summer you come across unemployed students sitting on the pavement drawing pigs with pink chalk and wanting to shake your hand treat them with sympathy rather than disdain. They’re not on pot. They’re just failures of the Work and Income test.