2l6 
EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY 
viewers. For this reason, the same general failings which 
have already been attributed to any method which rests 
primarily upon the unaided judgment of the individual 
can be attributed once more to this phase of employment. 
These failings are in sum, lack of consistency, inaccuracy, 
liability to the moods and prejudices of different in 
dividuals, and in general the errors due to the variable and 
uncertain factors of the personal equation. 
There is one notable exception to this arraignment of 
the question method; that is, the application blank. The 
application blank represents, in most cases, a standard 
set of well thought out questions which are given to all 
applicants in exactly the same fashion. It is an attempt 
to arrive at the most important facts about an individual 
in the most specific and lucid manner. That it does not 
always succeed in this respect, and that there are grave 
objections to many items on most application forms, need 
not be questioned. In any event, it has procured informa 
tion of inestimable value, and it is, without a doubt, far 
superior to the method which leaves the obtaining of this 
information to chance or to the discretion of the individual 
employment-office clerk. 
However, there is a large number of applicants who 
cannot read or write English and many who cannot even 
understand it. In such cases oral questions must be re 
sorted to. Either the employment interviewer must fill 
out the application blank himself or it must be discarded 
entirely and the applicant interviewed orally as well as is 
possible. In such cases, the most simple and obvious 
questions may be a stumbling block rather than an aid. 
As an example of this possibility, the following incident is 
related. Almost always the first question which an 
interviewer puts to an applicant is: “What’s your name?”