If you look back at my blogs from a few months ago, everything that I said about police recruitment is coming true. Most forces have indeed cut back on recruiting, either suspending or cancelling their intakes. Cutting recruitment is the fastest and easiest way to save money, and remember, forces are being asked to cut between 25 and 40 % of their budget. So, recruitment goes out of the window. This means YOUR force as well!

For those lucky few who have an assessment coming up at teh end of July/early August, you need to consider this. Chances are, if you fail, you will not be able to apply for another two years at least, as there will be no applications accepted. You will not be able to apply to other forces, as they will not be recruiting either. That means that you need to pass this assessment, or wait years before trying again. By which time of course, even more people will be trying to get in and the competition will be harder.

What i find curious is that many forces have high numbers of CSO’s and support staff applying, many of whom tell em they would not come on a  course. Those that believe this may wish to have a look at the Talking Blues homepage, under reasons to do/not do a course!

Of the few forces that are recruiting, and it is only a handful, they will probably top slice applicants, and take the ones with the highest scores first. Thyat is not so bad, except that there is a good chance that anyone else will not get taken on, pass or not.

In short, now is the time to come on a course. Otherwise, think how sick you will be if you get a rejection letter.

Good luck!

Readers will have gathered that I do not have much time for NPIA, the National policing Improvement Agency. These are the people who write the exams that recruits (and others) have to sit. I referred a few months ago to the announcement from them that instead of changing the assessment exercises every 12 months, they were going to change them every six months. To understand the importance of this, you need to realise that the exercises stay teh same word for word for a 12 month period nationally. So, if you do your assessment in Cornwall on one date, and your mate does their 11 months later in Newcastle, you do exactly the same exercises,word for word, the role plays, the written exercises, and the interview questions. Word for word. A little while ago, these appeared on YouTube, hence after a bit of a panic, NPIA announced it would be changing the exercises after six months. We have been saying this needed to happen for years. Inevitably, they have now gone back on this decision and the exercises have remained unchanged.This is why at lunchtime on a recent course of ours, i heard the current exercises being discussed in detail by someone whose boyfriend had just done his assessment. Great for applicants, not so good for NPIA!

My opinion of NPIA remains suitably low!

We have had a few emails over the last few weeks from people who have just failed their paper sift on the application form, and want us to have a look at it. We tend to be reluctant to examine forms on that basis for a number of reasons. Firstly, it must be appreciated that forms will fail for three main reasons:

1. It was not good enough (which is fair enough)
2. It was good enough really, but was harshly marked by inconsistent marking (a huge problem for forces)
3. It was easily god enough, but the force wanted minority recruits, so was effectively ignored (the worst case scenario).

From our perspective, forms in category 1 are easy to deal with. We can just correct them as normal. The ones under points two and three however are more difficult. This is because they were never really failures to begin with. Our problem is that clients send us a form, which we look at and say is perfectly acceptable. Who does the candidate believe? Well, we will have given an unbiased opinion, as that is what they re paying us to do, but it does present applicants with a issue. Talking Blues say the form is fine, but the candidate also knows that the police have failed it. It calls for a real leap of faith to resubmit it next year, and there is no guarantee of course that the same thing will not happen.

This is why we advise anyone in this position to start afresh with a new set of examples, or at least replace the one that they have failed on. Our view is that there is no percentage for you in us checking a form that you know has failed. Submit a fresh set of answers to us, and let us work on a blank canvas, so to speak.

If the form was on the other hand just not good enough, you have to be honest with yourself. Many people say to us that a fellow police officer checked it for them, but unless that person is in recruiting, what is the point? How do they know what should go into the form? Police officers are taught parts of the law, but  if I was selling my house, then I would use a solicitor, not a police officer. They use different knowledge. Being a police officer does not mean they are an automatic expert on the police application process.

Our Nottingham course only has a few places left if you are thinking about it. We have been really busy this week, especially on the application form checking front. Several forces have opened their recruitment lines, hence the rush on forms. Yet again though, moving back to the subject of getting into the job, despite what I have said on this blog, the advice we give in the police application form checking covering email, and the guidance we give out, I would say that three quarters of the forms we check d not deal with inappropriate conduct properly, to the extent that many would fail. I suspect this is because people have this view of the police that bobbies look after each other, and candidates want to show us that whilst they know inappropriate behaviour is wrong, they would not go overboard so nudge, nudge, wink, wink they would deal with it. This view is just SO wrong. Let me give you an example from Cheshire. There was an email going around a while back. It was  a set of crime scene photos from the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department). The LAPD had pursued a car theif onto the freeway. here the car stopped, and the thief tried to jump from one freeway onto another. Regrettably, he missed, and literally decapitated himself on a spiked fence underneath the freeway. The photos showed his head on the spiked fence whilst his body sat at the bottom of the fence. The photos were circulated bya control room operator to scores of people in the force. The subsequent discipline inquiry saw almost all of those people being subject to some form of disciplinary action for receiving inappropriate images. The point is that this is how severely the job views potentially inappropriate conduct (seniority excepted!)

have to say, we had a busy weekend. Exeter, Southampton and Stafford Saw everyone turning up, and having worked the First two, I can say what a good crowd you all were! Some groups really stood out in terms of asking questions and evidencing motivation, and you let kept us there till late both nights!

One question did come up on the feedback though, in terms of evidence for the interview question in terms of the diversity issue. Firstly, one should remember that the questions (and indeed the role plays and written exercises) stay the same, word for word, nationally, for six months. (It used to be 12 until NPIA realised the internet exists and that candidates tell each other what is on the assessment. They have tried to counter this by the six month change, which just half’s an absolutely massive flaw in the system into a merely massive one!). What this means is that as candidates are asked the same questions word for word, and often have very similiar backgrounds, the type of responses given to the interviewers tends to be the same or very similiar (another flaw in the system). Over the weekend, one student made the point that whilst I was suggesting types of answers that are good include race, sexuality and religion, my colleague appeared to suggest that these were a bit obvious now. Instead he suggested disability as being more “original”. Whilst I actually agree with this, it only works if you have that experience. If not, stick with the tried and tested topics of race etc. It is true something a bit different is more interesting for the interviewer, but as we prove on the course when we go through probable questions, most people will give such poor answers that you giving a common (but relevant) example will still mark you out as being a star. For police assessments, the trick is, as always, do your preparation and have examples ready to go.