Is honesty and integrity important to you in others?  

If so, how do you identify this in people you meet? 

Here we will consider identifying it at a job interview, but the traits described below obviously will work just as well for anyone, anywhere, any place.  Look for them and know instantly whether you can trust them or not.

So how can you identify honest and integrity in a new hire? Zeroing in on seeming weaknesses in the resume, then asking pointed questions about them at the interview? 

That might work, but only if your potential employee doesn’t understand the interview “game.”  With more and more job seekers either taking courses in both resume writing and interview skills, this strategy is becoming less and less likely to work.  The whole focus of interview courses is how to overcome shortcomings at your interview. 

Perhaps you expect to hear the answer to the honesty question from your applicant’s references? 

You probably won’t.  References are becoming more and more useless and employers become very wary as to what they say about previous employees.  Unless your applicant was fired for a strongly proven dishonest act, it is highly unlikely the previous boss will give any indication of dishonesty. 

There are various expensive and complicated personality profiles that claim to give this and other information as part of a complete package.  They take time, they cost a great deal of money, and they are seldom very specific on the topic of honesty. 

But there is a way you can tell if you job applicant is inclined to be dishonest.  You can tell it immediately – within seconds; you can do it yourself, and for free. 

This way is by looking at their handwriting.   

Based on a Government issued list of the top ten things employers look for in a new hire, this article shows you how to identify these in writing.

Iit is easy to get a writing sample from an interviewee – just hand them a pen and paper and ask them to write down why they want this job, or what are the main skills and attributes they bring to the job.  If you there is some area you particularly want to know more about, or if their resume is telling the truth about, ask them to write something about that.   

After all, you are the interviewer and the interviewee presumably wants to impress you and get the job, so will probably be very willing to do whatever you ask in the hopes that the position will be his/hers.  

The writing will tell if this person is a habitual liar, if they occasionally “bend the truth”, if they are manipulative – of the truth and other things or people.   

It takes about 10 minutes to learn how to identify honesty from writing, and after than you can tell it almost instantly by scanning a piece of writing.   

At a more advanced level, it can also tell you where, if they are writing about it, they are lying.  So if, for example, there was a situation in which you thought an employee was being deceitful, by asking them to write out the story as they see it, then looking at their writing, you could then tell if they were lying, and at what point in their story the lies appear. 

It is perfectly ethical to “read” handwriting of job applicants.   

Honesty and Integrity are not only important in the workplace. They are important in every area of life.  In the book "The Relationship Checker" an entire chapter is devoted to this topic.  Click on this link to read this free chapter, then scroll down the page to "Free Chapter" to learn more about Honesty and Integrity from Handwriting.

Handwriting analysis is a recognized branch of psychology, a part of body language, and just as you are free to make whatever assumptions you like from the body language of another person, you are also free to make whatever assumptions you like based on  “written body language.”   

And just as someone who has studied body language can tell more than someone who has not, someone who has learnt a little or a lot about handwriting analysis can tell more about someone from that than can someone who has never studied the science.   

So if you learn how to identify honesty and integrity or anything else from handwriting, it is totally ethical to use it in any situation you wish. 

And the beauty of it is that it works so well.  I encourage you to learn more about the science of handwriting analysis and use it in your place of work.