So I read some information about polygraphs before I went to take mine. I am taking a test for Fairfax County Dispatcher testing, not a police officer, not the CIA but a dispatcher. I saw some of these websites around and thought wow they are just a bunch of paranoid, conspiracy theorists who obviously have some character flaws. I admit, this was my thought when i first looked at your website.
Until today. Today I took my polygraph test. And out of the 10 questions that mattered, including "have you ever committed a serious or undetected crime?" and "have you ever stolen anything over $200?" the ones I failed were "other than Marijuana have you ever used any illegal drugs?" and "Have you ever bought or sold any illegal drugs?"
Now, some background on me. I used to work for a drug counseling center. I tried marijuana maybe 4 times tops when I was 14 years old! After that, nothing. I have not seen most drugs except on TV and in books. I work for a government agency and have taken random drug tests frequently. I don't even take tylenol when I have a headache because I'm an all natural kind of girl and don't like drugs legal or otherwise. I have a bottle of cough syrup with codeine thats still full from my last flu, because I only took 2 teaspoons. I was prescribed Vicodin for my wisdom teeth 2 years ago and did not TAKE ONE PILL. I ended up throwing away 20 tablets.
But, according to this test, which the examiner ran 3 times, my most significant responses were to those two questions, have I ever used illegal drugs besides marijuana and have I ever bought or sold illegal drugs.
Out of all the questions asked, I felt the most confident about those, because I have never done drugs. And those are the only ones that showed a reaction.
I called my recruiter after the test to tell her, and she said she would look at the test results and call me back, but that there was probably nothing they could do about it. But she acknowleged that the test is not always reliable.
Great.
So my career is probably dead in the water and theres nothing i can do. I can take a drug test right now using hair testing, going back however long I need to and I will pass. But not according to the polygraph.
And the examiner actually commented on how little I had ever done before the test. But after the test, he obviously thought I was a big drug user.
This is ridiculous.
My advice to anyone...avoid the test if you can help it. There is obviously no rhyme or reason to it and if I can fail it about drug use, anyone can. I've never been so upset and shocked in my life.
You might also want to see if you can make a FOIA request to the agency involved, and see if you can review the results of your background check.
As I've mentioned various times on this Board, it may have been the background investigation that also fouled up your application, as well as the polygraph.