Thai Lie Test For Job Seekers

[george]

Thai lie test for job seekers

BANGKOK: Suspect that a job applicant's resume looks too good to be true? Have a gnawing feeling that your accountant may be cooking the books and pocketing cash?

Well, if you're in Bangkok, you can call on a new company that uses lie detectors, or polygraphs, to confirm the claims of potential employees or ensure that workers are being honest.

Ori Weitz, an Israeli national, opened the Polygraph Centre in Thailand two weeks ago, offering services to businesses and individuals.

``Let's say you have a maid. Wouldn't you want to know where she came from? She takes care of your kids,''

Weitz said. ``Or say you hire a driver, you don't know his background - you could check right now if the driver had a fatality in any accidents.''

Weitz, who is the company's general director, said eight Thai polygraphers do employment screening, random periodic checks of employees and other investigative work for firms in the Thai capital.

The company is owned by an American and an Israeli, he said.

The polygraphs, he says, will detect if someone is lying by monitoring the examinee's pulse, breath, blood pressure and sweat, using sensors around two fingers, the upper arm, the chest and stomach.

The resulting chart looks like a jagged-lined electrocardiogram.

Weitz said that testing is entirely voluntary, but that in Thailand and elsewhere the testing can be written into pre-employment agreements and employment contracts. Voluntary polygraph testing by private companies is allowed in Thailand.

Weitz said one company was about to replace 10 employees with new hires because the manager was unable to determine who was responsible for a theft in the workplace.

``Ten people were sent here because they were all under suspicion that one of them took cash, and we managed to clear nine of them completely and put them back to work,'' he said.

``This is the success of the business - not to find the guilty one, the liar, the one who's not telling the truth or who did it. I think my success is putting nine people back to work.''

Weitz said he has worked in investigation and security for more than 30 years in Israel, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and London.

--Agencies 2004-01-20