TalkingBlues Blog » joining the police

Gwent Assessments

ben — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:09:30 +0000

Just an update. The St.Mellons course is now confirmed to go ahead, and will be great timing for the assessments in September, with a fair bit of inside information that someone has been sharing with us! As of today, we only now have a couple of places left, so book, or if in doubt call us on the out of hours number on 07754673540.

If you are still undecided about attending, have a look at the below comments:

Afternoon John,

Just thought I would send you an E-mail to thank you and your colleagues so much for the course held at Southampton on Saturday 26/6/10. The information gained on the day proved so valuable at my assessment centre three weeks later!

I have just had my results back and passed with 68%, so am very pleased indeed. I am sure that without taking part in the Talking Blues Course, I would not have passed, even after reading the many books available on the recruitment process.

On the day, I felt much more confident and felt I was much more prepared than many of the other candidates there, who appeared to struggle much more with the role plays and interview.

Thank you once again and I will not hesitate to recommend the course to anyone in the future.

Best Regards

” Afternoon John,

Just thought I would send you an E-mail to thank you and your colleagues so much for the course held at XX on XX. The information gained on the day proved so valuable at my assessment centre three weeks later!

I have just had my results back and passed with 66%, so am very pleased indeed. I am sure that without taking part in the Talking Blues Course, I would not have passed, even after reading the many books available on the recruitment process.

On the day, I felt much more confident and felt I was much more prepared than many of the other candidates there, who appeared to struggle much more with the role plays and interview.

Thank you once again and I will not hesitate to recommend the course to anyone in the future.

Best Regards”

Remember, we do not ask for the course fee balance until the end of the day, and if you do not feel it was worth it, then do not pay us, that is how confident we are that you will be impressed with the course.

How confident are you that you will pass?

Northants Police Recruitment

ben — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 19:32:42 +0000

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!

Police Assessment centre exercises

ben — Fri, 21 May 2010 10:14:46 +0000

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!

Another police success story….

john — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 19:21:04 +0000

Here is another thank you we had today.

“John,

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,”

Newcastle and Lincoln courses

john — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 17:03:17 +0000

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!