Putting the psycho in Psychometric testing

Getting a job these days is a tough old business. Just being a nice sort of bloke used to be enough - girls always did badly at this bit - and not actually having a criminal record or obvious signs of hereditary madness could pretty much guarantee you a salary rise before you'd even set foot in the offices.

These days, though, you also have to prove you're a superhero.

After the initial interview comes the psychometric test which pits you against a questionnaire. It has been designed to see if you're a nutter. Your goal is to outwit it by demonstrating that you have a personality so in tune with the company ethos than you could set it to music and sing it at their annual conference. You are their mission statement made flesh, to the point where you could have been genetically engineered for the job.

You need to demonstrate all the qualities they're looking for - but in moderation.

You'll be highly ambitious, yet not so much that you plan to oust your boss in a boardroom coup. You'll have buckets of initiative when coming up with compelling new ways of selling the company products, but none at all when pay rises or bonuses pass you by. You'll be friendly and personable at all times - and especially when, three years down the line, the company goes tits up and you lose your job again. You will have a broad range of helpful hobbies. Golf and clay pigeon shooting are in. Train-spotting and sugar packet collecting - until they turn up on the corprorate events agenda - remain very much out. You should have, and ideally be able to remember, the names of your wife and children, and be devoted to them, but never in way that might undermine your commitment to The Company.

Having demonstrated that you can be all things to all men, it's time for the second interview, in which you are given twenty minutes to tell your prospective employers how you saved the world.

This is the reason Francis is huddled over his computer, putting together a Powerpoint presentation for the spa bath people. Sales haven't been going well. The car park is in a riot of green acrylic with spa baths crammed in like chickens on a battery farm, taps sawn off in case of stress-related fighting. The Spa Bath Rights movement - if there is one - must surely be planning a raid to liberate them from their cramped and inhumane conditions and rehome them with kindly owners who can offer them a bathroom of their own and a regular rub down with Cif.

Things are so bad that the company is down to its last water-linked metaphor - seeing its profits going down the drain - and is saving this for the shareholder meeting.

It's time to draw up a short-list.

In addition to Francis, selected because he knows nothing about their business but is very clean, signalling a lifetime's experience with warm water; there's another man, who wears the same posh shoes and shirts as the management team, and a third, who stops talking about the nuances of acrylics moulding only if rendered unconcious with a swift blow to the waste pipe.

To prove that Francis has got what it takes, Mr Tosser has asked him to talk about a 'product or service he has sold, with reference to 'A brief contextual overview of the market and/or business model. How you achieve competitive advantage and/or USPs. How you achieved buy-in from key stakeholders and if relevant built a team.'

I think there's more, but am overtaken by a brief, but satisfying Power Nap before I can find out what it is.

Later that day, Francis wows the management team with his account of 'How I saved the world with only a packet of microwave popcorn and my enormous sales acumen,' and is given a tour of the offices.

"So, tell me a bit about your sales team," he ventures.

"They are all Tossers," says the director.

"How lovely that you've been able to keep so many of the family involved," says Francis, and is greeted by a look of total incomprehension.

Later that day, he gets a phone call. Mr I-Love-Acrylics has been awarded the job. Francis, though not thrilled, takes it pretty well. After all, who wants to be a Tosser in the moulded acrylics business when you can be a super hero in microwave popcorn? And still be allowed to wear your pants under your tights.

"Francis," I say, as a thought strikes me, "You didn't mention the tights at the interview, did you......?"