Employers can now fall back on a new gadget before recruiting a potential candidate, thanks to scientists who claim to have developed a voice-based stress detector that could identify which job applicants can perform better under pressure.
An international team, led by Bo Yin of the National Information and Communications Technology Australia in Sydney, has designed the new gadget which it exhibited at trade show CeBIT Australia recently.
"Normally we have full control over our vocal muscles and change their position to create different intonations. But when stressed, we lose control of the position of the speech muscles and our speech becomes more monotone," Yin was quoted by the New Scientist as saying.
Yin tested his stress detector in a call centre to identify which interviewees were actually more relaxed during recruitment tests. And the number of new staff that left after three months subsequently fell from 18 per cent to almost 12 per cent, he said.