“They’re useful,” says Regina Moirano, co-founder of recruitment firm COUL. Moirano says every client asks for psychological evaluations, and the psicotécnico is used as an additional tool at the end of the hiring process to complete the candidate’s profile. “It’s a tool that our clients value.”

The popularity stems from a heavy emphasis Argentinians place on psychoanalysis, which is not used as much anymore in Europe or the US.

Stockinger says different countries put greater emphasis on different types of testing for their employees. Germany, the US and some Northern European countries, among others, tend to favour aptitude tests and conduct studies on whether their tests are effective, whereas many companies in Latin America, Spain, Italy, Greece and France still rely on personality tests and “soft science” assessments.

Argentina is far from the only country with unusual recruitment tests, however.

The writing’s on the wall

In France, handwriting experts called graphologists sometimes analyse a candidate’s handwriting.

Sylvie Chermet-Carroy, a graphologist for more than 35 years, says “a graphological study will determine different aspects of the personality, whether it be their sociability, the type of communication they use [or] what kind of intelligence they have”. To determine this, they look at everything from handwriting pressure and writing speed to inclination and regularity.