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PERSONALITY: AN ASSET 433
"ANOTHER EMPLOYER SIMPLY ASKS EACH APPLICANT WHAT HE WOULD DO UNDER
A CERTAIN SET OF UNFAMILIAR CIRCUMSTANCES"
The manager jumped at the game offer
of the caller, turned the particulars of the
handbook over to him, and told the
visitor to return with sufficient orders to
fill the publication. His life and future
depended upon his success in this venture,
so he put into his fight for advertising
every ounce of his energy, every
bit of his physical strength, every
iota of his personality. He fought,
begged, wheedled and intrigued his way
into the private offices of advertisers, and
once there he simply refused to muzzle
his guns until he had succeeded in obtaining
space for the booklet.
The opposition of reluctant advertisers
broke down and faded before his virile
personality. In three days he came back
with the necessary orders. The commission
he drew was a liberal salary in itself.
The advertising agency then was all too
glad to take the newcomer on the staff.
In twelve months he was partner in the
undertaking and his success in a larger
field has carried him to the highest rung
of the ladder. He is certainly an illustration
of a man who deliberately uses
his personality, and his faith in himself
has been justified by the results he has
obtained.
Employers who attach importance to
personality can be found by the hundred.
One employer tests new applicants by
their power to sit upright in a chair. If
they slouch during the interview they are
never engaged no matter what credentials
they possess.
Another employer simply asks each
applicant what he would do under a certain
set of unfamiliar circumstances. He
does not expect an inspired answer to
every question. The value of the test is
its capacity to reveal the man who will
pit his mind at any problem off the
beaten track. Personality reveals itself
in answer to advertisements offering situations.
A familiar test among employers
is to state specifically what they
need and to refuse an interview to all
who do not give exactly the information
for which they are asked. It is a curious
sidelight on the prevailing confusion of
ideas in most minds that of a hundred
applications to an advertisement asking
applicants to state age, previous experience,
and qualifications, fully eighty per