Hello, recently I was the subject of a pre employment polygraph, and informed I failed by letter afterwards. 
It was 3  hours with only 20 minutes hooked up to the machine. It began with the examiner asking what I know about it, then convincing me that it works. Then he went into telling me how he's heard everything, and he doesn't care, it won't leave the room. He said he fails about 90% of people who he tests.  And he doesn't care about me or my past. He spent over an hour telling me what people have admitted,  Everything was sexual, sex with animals, cheating, anal sex, homosexual,  strangling yourself, everyone has something,  ect. A little bit about how important the job is, and how much trust is needed. How your whole life is around making decisions.  I didn't confess to anything. The polygrapher seemed like a real scumbag in my eyes, almost walked out. Then test time came, few questions with a  minute break  between sets. After each set he asked is I had any questions, I did not. He said we're all done here, keep your head up and nose clean. It appeared we left on good terms. 
There were less than 15 questions, 1 or 2 controls.. I may have reacted too strongly to a control.

Does this sound like a common polygraph? 
Should I have given this guy some minor confession to satisfy him?

It's not at all unusual for truthful people to fail the polygraph, but certain aspects of your experience are not so common. For example, it's not so common nowadays for a polygrapher to focus so heavily on sexual matters in a pre-employment polygraph. What sort of job was this for? Was it with a federal agency?

Second, it's common practice for polygraphers to confront the examinee with the results when the charts are scored as "deception indicated" and to interrogate the examinee in an attempt to elicit a disqualifying admission. So the absence of a post-test interrogation is unusual.

George W. Maschke wrote on Sep 9^th, 2015 at 4:41pm:


It was a police department in a pretty bad part of town, with a reputation for being the one of the worst departments in the state. The polygrapher was a detective, he once had a news article written about him being one of the top paid officers, due to the mass overtime he worked.

Yes he said 90% fail, then even told me how many tests he's done that month, and how many passed. It was low. Even going as far as saying if you ever make it in this field, you'll hear people call me all kinda of bad names because I failed them. He also stated he was one of the best in the state.

ITookAPoly wrote on Sep 9^th, 2015 at 2:52pm:

Absent any post-test interrogation, when would you have made such a confession?

-Aunty Agony.

ITookAPoly wrote on Sep 9^th, 2015 at 2:52pm:

It is a bad idea to make minor confessions of any kind at any time during a hostile interrogation.  Your inquisitor will take this as a sign of weakness, inflate its importance, and pretend to believe that it proves you are a despicable criminal.

A pre-employment lie-detector interview is a game of chance.  There is no strategy that guarantees a win, but there are some moves that guarantee a loss.  One of the losing moves is a minor confession.

In general, an applicant must decide -- very early in the application process -- what misdemeanors to admit to, disclose these misdemeanors on the proper forms, and never never never admit to anything else.  This not only gives the superficial appearance of complete honesty, but also establishes the applicant as a hardheaded warrior who will not take any crap from some egghead hiding behind squiggly lines on a graph.

-Aunty Agony.

George W. Maschke wrote on Sep 9^th, 2015 at 4:41pm:


Judging by the explicit nature of the questions regarding sex, this polygraph would appear to be one done by a federal agency.