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Have you ever stolen from your school or workplace?
Student question: "Does taking a pencil from school count as theft?"
Key points:
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The polygrapher takes great pride in one thing – determining if the candidate is truthful or not. They are proud of their skills at doing this.
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They do not pass moral judgment on whether an admission is disqualifying or not.
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Their report to the recruiting staff is simply “candidate appears to be truthful or not.”
Therefore, in the examples you asked about, a "YES" answer to “taking a pencil home from work” would at least be truthful. What counts at this point in the process is to get past the polygraph without looking like a liar.
You will be asked more about your answer later by the recruiting staff – especially if you didn’t mention it on your application. But your explanation won’t necessarily get you DQ’d. In fact, you can simply explain that while you don’t personally think of it as theft, you wanted to be extra careful on the polygraph.
Do NOT overthink these things during the poly.
Choose answers that lean toward excessive honesty and avoid deception (that makes you nervous).
Another example: "Have you ever had a domestic fight?" Most people have. So the safest answer is "YES". You can explain later that you consider any argument a fight.
Get my Mastering the Polygraph course here. ~ Sgt. Godoy
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