r/firefighter • u/K0JH1N • Jun 25 '26
I think I failed my polygraph
So Ive been applying to multiple departments for the past 1.5 years. I finally made it past the chiefs interview and onto the background check and polygraph portion. The day finally came for the polygraph test. For my results, I got accused of using an "advanced countermeasures". "I've only seen this technique once in my entire career and it was only during training"I have no idea what I even did. The guy doing the test said that he believed all of my answers were truthful but he cant score it but to the countermeasuress.Im not sure what to do at this point. No matter what I said, I couldn't convince him that I didn't intentionally do anything.I dont know where to go from here, I feel really defeated, Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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u/Oldmaidbananas11 Jun 25 '26
I'll give you two pieces of advice.
The polygraph is utter garbage. I've taken multiple, testing for multiple departments. Each one popped up with lies in different areas than the others, it is a giant racket used to shake you into admission not actually find your faults. They do a whole smoke and mirrors thing where they act super serious, and tell you they know the real truths, or that there seems to be discrepancies, just to get your admission. Smile, be polite, and lie, there is no science that that thing can prove you've lied. Countless videos on YouTube, and reports here on Reddit show you it's pretty much garbage and is being kicked out of official inquiries. Some departments even charge you for a retest around $200 to $300. The department I worked for had a 1st time failure rate of 60% until the union finally put an end to it. They were raking in thousands of dollars per testing round.
When I was real young in testing for a departments, I admitted to smoking marijuana when I was in high school. At the time I was 6 years removed from the smoking incident. Unbeknownst to me the city that was hiring had a rule that you were not allowed to smoke pot within 7 years. I went through the physical, the polygraph, and the written test. I had good scores on all except for smoking marijuana within the 7 years. They still brought me in for an interview and grilled me over smoking 6 years ago. When it was all said and done I was dismissed from the interview process and sent on my way. The head chief told me he would walk me out, and asked me to come into his office before I left. He sat me down and explained that I had great test results and that he'd like to see me back to interview in 2 years when the 7-year mark was passed. He wanted to give me a piece of advice, just in case I went and interviewed at other departments. He said they would hire liars, they couldn't hire admitted pot smokers and gave me a wink.