This is undoubtedly the hardest section of the form to complete, and it is also the most important. The police service training and staff appraisal system has a number of identified skills and abilities. These areas, or ones very similar, will be the ones that recruiters are looking to evidence throughout the recruitment process.

Don’t think you can just say you have never done something due to your personal circumstances. The police logic is as follows: A police officer needs these skills to be effective. If you cannot evidence these skills, you will be rejected in favour of someone who can.

You will be asked:

• When you have given good customer service
• When you have shown respect for other peoples lifestyles?
• When have you taken personal responsibility for something?
• When have you had to do something under pressure?
• Why do you want to join the police?
• What are your expectations of police work?

Just a thought about the realities of the Police recruiting system. Human nature being what it is, faced with 5000 forms to look at, we all look for easy ways to cut them down. So, if your form is, for example, dog eared, it will probably get thrown out without being even looked at.

The form breaks these questions down into specific "chunks" for you to complete. It is important to realise that you need to put "evidence" down here, and not just tell a very broad story. "Evidence" will in the main consists of a specific example, with a specified outcome. For example, you had to challenge inappropriate behaviour, the circumstances of which were (X). The reason you felt you had to do this specifically was (Y). The offender reacted by saying (Z). the end result was that (W). In effect, the story would need to be recognisable by, for example, a friend who was with you at the time. If your friend who was there would not realise which incident you were talking about, then simply put, the example is probably not specific enough.

As already stated, we now offer a form checking service, part of which consists of a detailed document with specimen answers and through guidelines.

Click HERE to go back to the section on general form information