Universal said the online exams have made a measurable difference in the quality of its workforce. Employee retention and customer satisfaction levels are up, while absenteeism and theft are down.

But the growing use of employment exams worries some, who say many aptitude tests lack rigorous review by professionals in the field and are crafted too narrowly to accurately judge one's eventual performance.

"You are really doing a disservice to the complexity of human individuality," said Dan P. McAdams, a professor of psychology and human development at Northwestern University.

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Psychologists have long debated whether personality can be reduced to a set of numbers, like a person's weight, shoe size or eyeglasses prescription. But that has not stopped people from trying. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which measures four qualities of a person -- introversion/extroversion, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, judging/perceiving -- is often used to help match people up with careers. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, which attempts to measure propensity for substance abuse or other pathologies, is regularly used to assess candidates for sensitive positions in police departments, banks, nuclear plants and the like. The Neuroticism, Extroversion and Openness Personality Inventory breaks personality down into five characteristics that some companies use to assess traits such as management potential.

Today, an estimated 2,500 U.S. firms offer assessments that are mostly variations on these main tests and are geared toward hiring.

"A well-developed test is probably the cheapest and most valuable selection tool an employer can have," said Gary G. Kaufman, owner of Human Resources Consulting near Nashville, who has worked in hiring at J.C. Penney Co. and the Internal Revenue Service. The problem, he said, is that "personality testing in general is a largely unregulated business, which means that anyone can make up a test and put it on the Internet and make any claims they choose about the test."

Some companies, many of which employ teams of PhDs, say they follow rigorous scientific methodology. But some reviews by independent assessors have raised questions. A survey by the Aberdeen Group Inc., a Boston-based technology research firm, found that 49 percent of companies using computerized hiring systems saw no impact on turnover. An American Psychological Association study found little evidence that tests purporting to measure honesty are accurate. The World Privacy Forum and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, privacy advocacy groups, allege that more than a few violate the spirit of privacy laws by asking sensitive questions.

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