Recruiters can ask this simple question from the job seekers and observe their response.
In fiction and art, lies can entertain and reveal deeper truths. However, in real life, lies can be incredibly destructive, leading to the collapse of companies. Traditional lie detection methods include polygraph tests and fMRI brain-mapping, but Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk uses a unique approach during the hiring process. At the 2017 World Government Summit in Dubai, Musk shared his simple yet effective method for detecting lies when recruiting candidates. His technique quickly gained popularity on social media.
Elon Musk, one of the world's leading business figures, has founded SpaceX and is currently the CEO of Tesla. He also owns X (formerly Twitter). Surprisingly, he has a knack for lie detection too. At the summit, Musk was asked how he would recruit candidates for a manned mission to Mars. He replied that he relies on his gut feeling but also asks specific questions to make his final decision. “My interview questions are always the same,” he explained, adding: “I say tell me the story of your life and the decisions you made along the way and why you made them.”
After the introduction segment, he asks the candidates a crucial question, “Tell me about some of the most difficult problems you worked on and how you solved them.” Unfolding the reason why he asks this question, the entrepreneur said, “The people who really solved the problem know exactly how they solved it. They know and can describe the little details.”
At the same time, lying candidates would not go into detail or they would be using someone else’s story, “The people that pretended to solve the problem can maybe go one level and then they get stuck!” Therefore, this is a good question to spot the liars, he proclaimed. Various studies confirm the effectiveness of Musk’s job interviewing technique.
Research published in Nature Journal indicates that when a person is innocent, their innocence will reflect in their verbal cues. The reason to back up this claim was, that deception is cognitively more demanding than truth-telling, given the additional cognitive processes engaged during lying. Lying is more effort-taking than truth-telling. So when interviewing, the recruiters should see if a candidate is “narrating the events exactly as they occurred,” or if there are signs of manipulations.
Since lying requires more cognitive effort than telling the truth, liars have to constantly monitor themselves and ensure that their story doesn’t contradict itself. So, researchers say, if the recruiter increases the cognitive load on a person, they can get to a point where the liar can’t handle the extra stress, but the truth-teller can. One way of doing this is by asking candidates to narrate their stories, for example, a recent sales deal they closed, something similar to what Musk described.
Another scientific property behind Musk’s question is that it makes candidates spill out detailed statements about their work experience. And according to the Asymmetric Information Management lie-detection technique, described in Nature Journal, the more detailed statements are, the more easily they can be classified as genuine or fabricated.
Editor's note: This article was originally published on June 23, 2024. It has since been updated.
Share on Facebook
