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 good number of bookings this week for our Bristol course, but also two people cancelled who have just found out that they faield the paper sift for Avon and Somerset police.

This just goes to show the importance of being prepared. We have done quite literally hundreds of application form checks this year, and the vast majority by far have gotten through. However, others fail to appreciate that no matter how good you think you are, if you do not put 100% into the paper sift, then you will never see an assessment centre.

It astounds me when I speak to those who have failed and they tel me that they spent at least a full evening on their police application form. Unless you are very good at competency based forms (and most people are not), I would expect the competency section to take up to a week to complete. When I was applying for jobs, I would take a whole night composing a 200 word entry for a single competency. Ane remember, I have written a book on passing police application forms.

Most people who find the police application forms easy have underestimated them, and will probably fail. There are those who will knock out an answer in a night who will get through, but they are in the minority. As many people have discovered in Avon and Somerset this week, assuming you will pass the paper sift is not necessarily a good idea.

But, the most important moral is about preparing for everything. There are always a number of people on every course that we do who have failed the police assessment centre process itself, and the following year have come to us to prepare properly. I constantly here the comment (If I had done this last year I would have passed………”. And it is true, had they come to us originally, they would now be a year in the service. I am not necessarily saying come on a Talking Blues police assessment centre preparation course, but simply make sure that you prepare properly for it in some way. The police have a word for those that do not prepare. We call them civilians.

Just a quick note that the venues for our poliuce recruitment courses are booked now, and due to space limitations at each there are only five places left for Cardiff, and six for Newcastle. We still have plenty of room at Bristol for those thinking of that venue.

Here is another thank you we had today.

I attended your seminar in Leeds at the Holiday Inn recently. There I asked you how you determined the number of your students that were successful at the assessment centre.  I am pleased to let you know that I passed my assessment centre for XX Constabulary with a pass mark of 74%! Preparation and attendance of your seminar no doubt played a massive part in this achievement and I would like to thank you once again.

Regards,”

These courses are now proving very popular, and the venues have been booked. However, there is only so much space at these Holiday Inns in terms of people that we can fit into the meeting rooms. If you do want a place at either of these, we would advise you to book sooner rather than later. It is very rare for us to say that, as we think it is a bit cheesy, but this time it is true!