I'm sorry to hear about your experience.  I was in the same state of shock as you two years ago.  It gets better, but you still remain angry with such a system that is inherently biased against the most honest and those who care most about getting the job.

Its too bad experiences such as yours keep surfacing.  Good luck with your future endeavors.  I can tell by your post that you are an honest person and you will make it in law enforcement somewhere.

thx10050,

Its unfortunate that it takes a bad experience for people to see the light. And all the agencies now are telling candidates not to research polygraphy. But as a side little bit of humor, a majority are ....  Makes one think on just how much credit they give the process. I talked to 2 people recently in my travels and they give credit to this website for there current positions and beating the polygraph. They researched it because they were told not to.  Don't you just love it !! 

Regards ....

I had a very similar experience a year ago with a USSS poly.  I was late to the interview because I was having difficulty finding the place; despite calling on my cell phone and asking for directions and letting them know I would be late, the examiner clearly had a bad attitude for the rest of the day.  He kept saying throughout the interview that he was having a hard time understanding why I would be late to such an important interview if I really cared about getting the job.   

The actual poly itself was just as you described.  Of course, after the poly was finished he left the room to "read the charts", which is a customary tactic.  He came back in, and just as in your case, told me I failed the drug question.  At the time I had never used an illegal drug in my life.

He kept saying over and over that he could only help me if I would "come clean", and I kept telling him that I had answered his questions fully and had nothing to add.  He even told me that my answers seemed "Clintonian", i.e. like the dodgy answers Bill Clinton used to give!  It seemed ironic to have a Secret Service agent speak so mockingly about a former President.

I openly told the examiner that I didn't believe in polygraph and that my prior experiences with it, combined with the reading I had done about it, had convinced me that there was no validity to the science of it.  This really seemed to bother him.   

I received my rejection letter not long after.

I have had other experiences applying for law enforcement positions, and most have been negative.  Despite being an excellent candidate for law enforcement employment, and despite having been offered one police job (which I turned down), the bulk of my application/interview experiences have been negative.  My experiences with the US Secret Service and the US Capitol Police rank pretty high on my list of lousy experiences in dealing with law enforcement agencies.

I have now abandoned my law enforcement ambitions in favor of other pursuits that pay more and don't employ such unsophisticated people and processes.

Best luck to you.

Just an update, but I received my letter of rejection from the USSS today. It's fine with me: I'd already decided that it'd come down to either me rejecting them or they rejecting me.

I sent out two more applications to police departments in Indiana (five total so far). The state requires a polygraph as well, so if anyone's interested (and if I make it that far in the application process for any of the departments), I can post my experiences in that regard later on.

Horrible just horrible, why does it have to be like this? we want to serve our country but b4 that we have to be treated like a criminal..... something wrong with that picture? i think so. i will make an attemt to apply for the secret service but i first wanted to see what other people had to say about the test. i'm not mush of a nervous person but when getting slammed by a polygraph test i know dam well i will be nervous...anyway sorry for the people that did fail .. and question for thx10050, what other questions did they ask? how weird were they? i have been really curious about that ,thanks.

@ thx10050


Do you remember the agent’s name who conducted your test? This sounds eerily familiar down to the Clinton quote.