Harry Wallop

And supposedly in the same way that children are told that, you know, you can't you can't beat the system.

Supposedly, these are a true measure.

They're overseen by the British Psychological Society.

And these are I mean, it's hard to know how accurate you can really tell.

someone's character or not, because, of course, you know, good people, people quite skilled at interviews are quite good at shielding, you know, parts of their personality.

Yeah, yeah, indeed.

And of course, another method which has become very popular in the last few years is hiring companies and there are specialist companies out there who will trawl through all your social media, all your online presence.

I mean, it's sort of a very detailed due diligence.

This is only going to happen for moderately senior people you're going to hire, people at board level or people who have been paid a lot of money and you want to make sure you haven't made a terrible mistake.

And it's not necessarily checking you've said something idiotic when you were drunk one night or posting inappropriate photos.

It's more to try and, again, analyze what sort of person you are, how well you interact with people, how angry you are.

So this has become a big industry because people enter these jobs with now as much as 20 years' worth of history.

It's all there online.

And it's no different from what private investigators often do when –

Business people, if they're entering into a deal or a contract with someone, will hire a private investigator to trawl through this person to see whether they're legitimate or not.

Well, this is this is the big thing.

So the last few years, it's become incredibly fashionable to say you must bring your whole self to work and workplaces must encourage bringing your whole self to work.

It's all about being authentic.

And that's become a watchword.

And if you say, actually, I'm not sure that's a good idea.