Could your voice cost you a new job?

Could your voice cost you a new job?

With fewer humans in human resources, speech analysis software is helping employers hire new candidates, judge suitability for promotion and gauge stress levels among workers.

'How did you relax on Sunday?' 'What was your last holiday like?'

Simple though these questions sound, your next job might depend on how you answer them. And it won't be a human you're talking to, but a computer.

Instead of laborious online questionnaires or psychometric tests, some recruiters are asking job candidates to call a phone number, key in a personal pin code and respond to a string of questions posed by a computer.

Mind gone blank? Press the hash key to skip to the next question. As long as you don't sing, rap or simply read aloud, what you say doesn't matter. It's how you say it.

Human resources departments have long used computer algorithms to scan curriculum vitae to pick out the best candidates for a job. Now, the use of technology is moving to another level.

Speech tests are being used by some companies not just for recruiting, but also to assess and train communications skills, judge suitability for promotion, and to gauge employee stress levels.

In all cases, nobody - at least, no human - is listening to what you say. But is it truly objective? And what are the risks?

It works like this. Your 15-minute voice recording is analysed digitally - tone of voice, choice of words, sentence structure - to determine personality traits such as openness to change, enthusiasm, empathy.

In a fraction of a second, a software programme sums up your character. Charts and diagrams reveal how friendly, status-driven or well organised you are - compared to the recruiter's ideal profile.

"There is no person in the world who would be able to analyse so many aspects of personality, skills and speech in just 15 minutes," says Mario Reis, co-founder of Precire Technologies in Aachen, Germany.

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