The CNC are currently recruiting for new police constables with a closing date of 28/2/11.

Ordinarily, many prospective candidates would prefer to apply to their local force, (especially since the CNC vacancies are in Cumbria). However, with many forces if not all having suspended recruitment, you can bet there will be a massive number of people after the CNC posts. In the North West for example, Cheshire, Lancs, Merseyside and GMP will not be recruiting for the foreseeable future, measured in years not months. So, a lot of people who would have applied to those forces will try CNC.

At the risk of being self serving, it is going to be really tough to get into this force just now. Maybe we can improve your chances.

Regards

Taken from an extract from The Guardian Online from 29/11/10.Please visit their website for the full story. This happens in many forces, which is why you need to do a course!

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Grahame Maxwell, who heads the North Yorkshire force, will be accused of gross misconduct, while his deputy, Adam Briggs, faces a straight misconduct charge over claims that friends or family of existing staff were favoured to fill a handful of jobs.

Both men are expected to deny the charges, with those against Maxwell the first to be levelled against a chief constable in the UK for 35 years.

Two other members of the force have been dismissed for nepotism, while a constable has been given a final written warning in connection with the affair.

The moves follow an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into allegations following the recruitment drive, which took place last winter.

More than 300,000 people applied for 60 jobs in the force, and the jobs line set up to cope with applications repeatedly crashed.

The IPCC worked with North Yorkshire police authority’s professional standards subcommittee, which made the recommendation for the two misconduct hearings.

The commission said the two senior officers were accused of working with staff under their line management to “circumvent the recruitment process”.

“The IPCC will not be in a position to publish its findings from the investigations until all misconduct matters are concluded,” a spokesman said.

North Yorkshire police said: “The individuals in question have a right of appeal. For that reason, it would not be appropriate to make any further comment at this time.”

The joint report is understood to contain evidence that the chief constable and his deputy misused their influence in the appointment process to give priority to a relative or relatives of Maxwell.

When the inquiry was announced in March, the IPCC commisioner, Nicholas Long, called the allegations a matter of “extreme concern.”

In a statement at the time, the IPCC said: “It is alleged the chief constable, Grahame Maxwell, gave assistance to one of his own relatives and a relative of Deputy Chief Constable Adam Briggs. It is also alleged DCC Briggs gave assistance to that same relative.

“Additionally, and separately, two police staff members are alleged to have used their positions to circumvent the initial phase to benefit themselves and one other person.”

The inquiry was led by Chief Constable Mike Cunningham, of Staffordshire police. The North Yorkshire assistant chief constable, Sue Cross, said at the time: “Our principal concern is to reassure applicants and the communities we serve that our recruitment process is fair and transparent.

“To that end, North Yorkshire police is currently conducting a very thorough integrity assurance exercise and co-operating fully with the IPCC.”

police chief and his deputy are to face serious misconduct charges following an independent report into alleged nepotism during a botched recruitment exercise. 

A police chief and his deputy are to face serious misconduct charges following an independent report into alleged nepotism during a botched recruitment exercise.

Grahame Maxwell, who heads the North Yorkshire force, will be accused of gross misconduct, while his deputy, Adam Briggs, faces a straight misconduct charge over claims that friends or family of existing staff were favoured to fill a handful of jobs.

Both men are expected to deny the charges, with those against Maxwell the first to be levelled against a chief constable in the UK for 35 years.

Two other members of the force have been dismissed for nepotism, while a constable has been given a final written warning in connection with the affair.

The moves follow an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into allegations following the recruitment drive, which took place last winter.

More than 300,000 people applied for 60 jobs in the force, and the jobs line set up to cope with applications repeatedly crashed.

The IPCC worked with North Yorkshire police authority’s professional standards subcommittee, which made the recommendation for the two misconduct hearings.

The commission said the two senior officers were accused of working with staff under their line management to “circumvent the recruitment process”.

“The IPCC will not be in a position to publish its findings from the investigations until all misconduct matters are concluded,” a spokesman said.

North Yorkshire police said: “The individuals in question have a right of appeal. For that reason, it would not be appropriate to make any further comment at this time.”

The joint report is understood to contain evidence that the chief constable and his deputy misused their influence in the appointment process to give priority to a relative or relatives of Maxwell.

When the inquiry was announced in March, the IPCC commisioner, Nicholas Long, called the allegations a matter of “extreme concern.”

In a statement at the time, the IPCC said: “It is alleged the chief constable, Grahame Maxwell, gave assistance to one of his own relatives and a relative of Deputy Chief Constable Adam Briggs. It is also alleged DCC Briggs gave assistance to that same relative.

“Additionally, and separately, two police staff members are alleged to have used their positions to circumvent the initial phase to benefit themselves and one other person.”

The inquiry was led by Chief Constable Mike Cunningham, of Staffordshire police. The North Yorkshire assistant chief constable, Sue Cross, said at the time: “Our principal concern is to reassure applicants and the communities we serve that our recruitment process is fair and transparent.

“To that end, North Yorkshire police is currently conducting a very thorough integrity assurance exercise and co-operating fully with the IPCC.”

Our book, “The Talking Blues guide to passing the police recuitment process”, has now been formally published by Howtobecome books. (Note this is an entirely diffeernt book from the course manual we use on our seminars). You can buy it from Amazon, Waterstones and all good bookshops, as they say. The list price is £12.99, but Amazon are selling it at the time of writing for £8.44

We are no longer selling the book or the CD therefore direct from our site. We are currently getting our site updated.

We promise you it is by far and away the best bok on the market!

Regards

We have had a few people this week asking us whether our courses are simply telling people what the official police open evenings do. Notts police for example are running open evenings. Whilst we would encourage going to one of these to show willing, they are pretty worthless. The suggestion our courses are just like the official police ones is so far from the truth that we actually cover it under the “Five reasons not to use us” button on the Talking Blues website. However, I have reproduced the text below:

“My force recruitment team/a bobby I know has told me I do not need to do a private course. A private company will not tell me any more than I would find out on the force recruitment evening I did when I got my application form. They are just charging me for something I can find out for free.”

If it is a police  recruiting officer telling you not to bother with us, consider this. The recruiters do not want prepped up candidates, they want to see you as you are. Prepped up candidates mean more people pass, which makes the assessors job harder. It is not in the recruiter’s interest for you to do a course as there is a much greater chance of you passing, and they will not care about your interest.

Interestingly though, police recruiters sometimes say that you will get told the same information at a free force recruitment seminar than you will at one of our courses. We always smile at this. To begin with, we guarantee that the person saying it will not have been on a Talking Blues course, so how do they know this to be true? We are also unaware of any police force using a specially written 160 page manual like ours. But think about this logically.

The job of the police recruitment department is to select the best candidates, NOT to help YOU as an individual pass. If the recruiters hold an open evening, then EVERYONE gets the same information (and it is usually generic rubbish anyway.) This means that by definition, YOU are no better off then everyone else. Talking Blues job is to make YOU the best candidate. As a commercial organisation, Talking Blues stands or falls by its ability to develop YOU so YOU PASS.

The average police recruitment evening will have at least  fifty people there and last 2 hours. There will be almost NO interaction between YOU and the recruiters. Our police recruitment courses are designed to develop YOU as an individual, and for example during the role play session, will focus on YOU doing individual role-plays, with feedback specific to YOU. Our courses therefore have a trainer ratio on average of 1:7, and last ten hours. We have our money back on the day guarantee if you are not happy that you have benefited. It is nonsense for police recruiters to say that a recruitment open evening is the same as our course. As regards the fact we charge for helping you, the same argument could be applied to driving instructors. We have knowledge that you desire in order to gain a great career, and meeting that need is our business. Search the web for our company and you will see how well we meet that need.

Bottom line: of course our course is totally different from open evenings. Open evenings simply inform EVERYONE what the process involves. So there is no advataneg to be gained from them as an individual, as everyone is told what you are. Our professionally written course takes YOU as an individual and explains to you what YOU need to pass. The two things are categorically not the same!

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.