Lie detectors are a big no-no at job interviews as they can only be legally used during criminal investigations, and even during these, they can only be used if the letter of the law is followed, Hungary’s ombudsman Máté Szabó has ruled. According to fn.hu, more and more companies are asking for permits to use lie detectors during job interviews, ostensibly because resumés are increasingly works of creative writing. Consequently, the Hungarian Trade Licensing Office asked for the ombudsman to weigh in on the appropriateness of using the creepy but apparently effective machines.
The devices, Szabó announced, violate personal rights and degrades the people subjected to them. One of the most important and basic elements of human dignity is the right to share one’s opinion freely, Szabó concluded, and using lie detectors would assumingly deprive the potential employee of their right to lie their way through an interview.
Earlier, index.hu reported that an increasing number of jobseekers lie on their CVs and/or at interviews. According to sociologist Péter Zsóka, it often happens, for example, that an applicant writes on their resume that they are still employed, then at the interview reveal the inconvenient fact that they were actually fired weeks before. Rather unsurprisingly, older applicants will often fudge details about their age to appear younger.
Zsóka also provided the example of a woman in her thirties who told her interviewer that she was unable to have children so the company would not worry about her taking maternity leave. A month after starting the job and when her contract was finalized, she revealed she knew she had been pregnant when she applied.
The truth is usually stretched or outright broken in order to appear more qualified for a job, for example when young university degree-holders with only one or two years of experience embellish the importance of their previous jobs and and the skills they obtained while working there to appear more qualified than they really are.
Zsóka said experienced interviewers are usually capable of telling when a job candidate has a pair of aces or if they are merely bluffing. Verifying the truth in resumes, however, is difficult, unless of course one actually takes the oh-so difficult step of contacting references or asks the applicant to demonstrate that their skill sets actually correspond with what they wrote on their resumés.
How about asking for a reference like in the good old days? In countries like the UK employers have a legal obligation to provide a reference.
With regards to being pregnant, it’s a personal business so don’t see why should I tell anyone in advance. (It would be illegal to discriminate against anyone on this basis anyway.)
Anyone who has applied for a job recently will know that it’s an artform to confirm details such as job spec, salary, benefits etc. through employment agents, and many jobs aren’t as they are advertised. The other thing is turnover, in some industries the turnover is huge, people resign constantly, yet this is rarely admitted to at an interview, so people will accept the job either because they need to earn a living or because they have been mislead, maybe both.
Lie detectors definitely aren’t the answer to this.