TALKINGBLUES BLOG

All recieved this week:

Hey John!!!

Dont know if you remember me but I attended your course in xx on 4th July 09.
I just want to let you know that I received my big brown envelope today! I was dreading opening it but I passed with 60%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just want to say a big big big thank you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I could not have done it without your course! Your material was brilliant and you were a brilliant teacher! I am so happy and Im going out to celebrate with my friends now.
Needs to start revising for my Interview now hehe!
Thank you so much again!

I would like to say a very big thank you for the help and advice that I received on 5th July in Kent.” I was dreading the police assessment role play exercises before I went on the Talking Blues course, but enjoyed doing them at my assessment centre after being taught how to approach them, and not to fear them. I managed to keep the conversation going in all of them for the full 5 minutes, and had to be cut short, and also the same for the interview questions!Got my results through yesterday and scored 64% overall, with 100% for oral communication.Many thanks, especially to Graham, don’t think I would of passed without your excellent help.

Hi,
I took the talking blues course on June 28th at Stafford, just to let you know I passed the police assesment and have my fitness test and would like to say thank you for the help. I will definately recommend this course to friends.
Once again Thank You

Hi,
I just wanted to thank you for all the help you gave me back in June (26th/ Hatfield) for my police assessment day preparation, I got my results yesterday and passed with 62% so am looking forward to my day 2 now!

Always makes us feel good, and we reckon that if we get stopped for speeding, at least 20% of the uniform officers in the country should know us by now!

We are always being asked about how to get a good example of the above for the police application form and interview. Below is our advice on it.The tone and principles involved also cover the whole police recruitment and police assessment system. Not understanding them is the most common erros we see both at the police application stage and also the police assessment preparation that we do.

Where can you get examples from?

This question is basically about dealing with unacceptable behaviour. Ideally, your answer would be about challenging racist, sexist or homophobic behaviour, but you’re not limited exclusively to these kinds of examples. Any experience you may have had of someone making allegedly humorous remarks about, for example, the way people dress, speak, act or look may provide evidence. These could include age, weight or disability. In essence, you just require an example where someone has been doing something that would offend somebody else. It does not matter if that person was offended or not. As the question itself states, the assessors are looking for evidence that you did something positive to resolve the situation, whatever it was.

Everybody has seen someone at some time doing something that would make another person uncomfortable. Those candidates who say that they have not either live in some amazingly perfect part of the country, or are admitting that they do not recognise inappropriate behaviour.

An example diversity answer

Background

“A new female colleague transferred into my office at work. She was quite young, and had only been out of college for a few months. Immediately, my male colleagues began to make sexist comments towards her. Over a period of the few days, one male member of staff in particular began to pester her to go out for a drink with him. These attentions were clearly unwelcome, and she appeared embarrassed and upset by them.”

What I did

“I approached her and confirmed with her that she found the comments unwelcome. The next time the male made such a comment, I immediately challenged it, pointing out that he was causing embarrassment, and showing a lack of respect. I also told him that I found his conduct personally offensive, and that I intended to bring it to the attention of management if it were to continue.”

Why do you think the offender acted inappropriately?

“I do not think my male colleague had stopped to consider the effect of his actions. He regarded himself as being a bit of a joker, and was shocked when I pointed out the effect his thoughtless actions were having. He simply had not realised that the effect his actions had on the new staff member, and was immediately sorry.”

What would have happened if you hadn’t intervened?

“Had I not intervened, I believe the female colleague would have either left, or else had no alternative but to make a formal complaint to management. In any event, she would have been miserable at work, and the inappropriate comments from my colleague may well have got worse if left unchallenged.”

On police recruitment applications, there are usually four main competency questions on the application form. Broadly speaking, these cover the areas of:

• Diversity and respect
• Team working
• Working under pressure
• Communication

Each of these police competencies is broken down on the form into a number of specific segments. Each segment asks the candidate for certain specific parts of the example. Photocopying the pages and practising your answers will pay huge dividends before you write anything onto the real form. The best way to go about completing these questions is to consider each one separately. Without worrying too much about the specifics of the example, compile a list of potential examples for each question. Once you have some examples in mind for a given competency, you can then start comparing each one to the specific parts of the question.

Your examples must be about you, in terms of showing “you” in the best possible light as being the one who has contributed to the scenario. They should not be instances where you merely observed something happening, or were just a minor player. Anyone can watch a film – the police service are looking for people to work in front of the camera!

Use “I” not “we”

This is a common failing by candidates both on application form and interview. Most of us play down our involvement in situations due to modesty. In this recruitment process though, the form is looking for specifically what you did. Therefore, your answers must always refer to the word “I”. It is you being assessed and your actions, not the person you happened to be with at the time the incident occurred. Using the word “we” often suggests that in the reality of the situation you’re describing, you simply happened to be there and the other person who you are speaking about actually did all the work. This is a particular problem with special constables and police support staff applicants. The application form is no place for modesty.

What if you can’t think of any examples?

This is a common cry from police assessment candidates. However it is unacceptable. If you have no evidence of a certain skill area, then quite simply you will fail. One student on a course lived in a small village in rural South Wales. There were only thirty or so residents, all from the same ethnic background and religion as the student. She was only 19 and had never lived or gone to school outside the village. She therefore made the point, and it is not an unreasonable one, that she had had no opportunity to gain experience of diverse communities. However, from a police recruitment perspective, this would be unacceptable. Quite simply, the police assessors would consider that this candidate has no evidence to convince an assessor that she would be able to deal with a diverse policing environment. No one is saying that she could not do it, just that she’s not evidenced it. There are 60,000 other applicants to choose from. There will be more than enough of those people who do evidence such qualities. If you were the police service, would you choose the candidate who cannot produce any evidence, or the one that can?

Consider this when you are filling out your police application. The same skills of course need to be displayed throughout the police recruitment process.

Any candidate for the police service must be aware of the emphasis placed by the service on weeding out any behaviour whatsoever that can be termed as racist, sexist or homophobic. No right-thinking person would disagree with this.

What most people find difficult to believe is the very wide-ranging definition of “inappropriate behaviour” and “respect for diversity” that the police service professes to believe him. Clearly, any candidate who uses insulting words, phrases or behaviour at assessment centre should be failed. The difficulty arises for many candidates because they do not realise what the police define as inappropriate conduct. For example, the use of a phrase such as “these foreigners” when dealing with an issue in a role-play could well be considered as displaying a racist attitude and therefore result in an automatic fail.

Candidates may find for example that in some of the documents they are given to read before a role-play, that a senior manager is referred to by the name of “Jay”. It the candidate then enters the role play where they meet someone other than “Jay” and constantly refers to this manager’s gender as being male, they will be marked down. This is because of course the name can also be used by a female. It will be argued therefore that by assuming that the manager is male, the candidate is biased towards sexist behaviour. It is not the purpose of this book to debate whether this is going too far or not but such issues need to be borne in mind by candidates.

There are numerous other examples. In the North of England it is normal for people to address others as “love” or “duck”. Visit Liverpool or Manchester for example and chances are you will be addressed by one of these two terms several times within the space of an hour. Using them in an assessment centre however will be seen as patronising and potentially sexist. Therefore they could be the cause of a failure. To be fair of course, I know a lot of females who really resent a complete stranger calling them “love”. I can completely accept that they view the term as being patronising. This is the reasoning behind it being deemed sexist.

When I speak about these issues on a course, I can see the looks of disbelief on candidates’ faces. I have a theory that the average candidate still believes that the last thing the police want is people who will challenge such “minor” issues. There are those who still believe the police service “looks after its own” and would not wish anyone to join who was going to start criticising people for using such phrases as the ones above. I can assure you after 15 years in the police, that these beliefs are completely false. Candidates need to accept that any comments that can in any way be construed as being sexist, racist or homophobic, will result in failure. If you do not subscribe to this belief, and actively follow it at the assessment centre, then you will fail.

As far as the police service is concerned, respect for diversity is the single most important core competency being assessed. Consider this. There are seven areas of core competency, which will be described shortly. In six of them, candidate’s marks are averaged out and if the average mark is above the required level, then the candidate will pass. In the competency area of diversity, a single grade D will result in an automatic fail even if every other grade achieved on the day by the candidate is a Grade A.

I cannot stress strongly enough that if you are not prepared to act on this essential piece of information, you have dramatically reduced your chances of passing the assessment centre.

JUST HAD A CANCELLATION FOR THIS COURSE, SO IF YOU ARE GOING TO CHESHIRE ASSESSMENT IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, WE CAN FIT YOU ONTO THIS ONE. JUST CALL OUR OUT OF HOURS NUMBER ON 07754673540. NO NEED FOR A DEPOSIT, JUST TURN UP AT THE VENUE. AS EVER, IF IT IS NOT WHAT YOU EXPECTED IT TO BE THEN DO NOT PAY US! SIMPLE!

JOHN