Elon Musk Has A Favourite Job Interview Question That Experts Say Can Catch Liars

The AIM approach "enhances verbal lie-detection by encouraging truth-tellers (but not liars) to be forthcoming with information," the study explained.

A job interview question has been found to have the potential to catch liars and billionaire Elon Musk has been using it. According to the New York Post, Tesla and SpaceX in 2017 revealed that he asked the same interview question to all his candidates. The question is "Tell me about some of the most difficult problems you worked on and how you solved them". Mr Musk claimed that this question helped him catch the liars and now a study has backed his method.

According to the Post, the question falls under the 'Asymmetric Information Management' (AIM) interview technique which has been designed to provide interviewee with a way to demonstrate they are speaking the truth by telling in detail about their experience. The AIM approach "enhances verbal lie-detection by encouraging truth-tellers (but not liars) to be forthcoming with information," the study explained. 

There are several ways to spot a liar, as per the research published in the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. If an applicant answers the question with a detailed response, they're likelier to tell the truth, unlike someone who gives a vague answer. "Small details are the lifeblood of forensic investigations and can provide investigators with facts to check and witnesses to question," Cody Porter, one of the study's authors, wrote.