I had an interesting conversation this week about whether being involved with the police already, such as a special constable, CSO or support staff member, is an advantage in getting in. This is particularly so since a lot of forces suggest that if you are unsuccessful at the police assessment centre stage, that you join the specials or become a cso to “gain experience”. In one or two forces, they hold special assessment centres for staff, so one can argue there that there is an advantage, but these are few and far between.

In most forces, the reality is that being in the job already gives you no advantage whatsoever. You get no preference when it comes to getting hold of an application for starters. Then when you get to assessment, no one will care about what you work as now, it is all about providing the right competencies. So, you are certainly not going to get some inside form of fast track.

There may be a slight advantage in that you may have some examples of partnership working, but there is no reason why a switched on candidate would not be able to bring in the same from outside.

There is however one potential disadvantage in that police related candidates often bring police type attitudes with them, which is exactly the kind of thin g the job is looking to weed out. Every CSO will have dealt with people who police officers have told to shut up in no uncertain times, or will have been exposed to police culture which is often a bit cynical and dismissive of minor problems.  This is the biggest hurdle that police staff have to overcome, the fact that if they have taken on board these values, and let them slip out in the assessment, then they are likely to fail.

Overall then, it is certainly not an advantage to be working in the police now in terms of applying, and can actually set you up in some ways to fail.

For those of you that would argue this is not true, consider this. If being a  CSO/Special/Support staff member is such a big advantage, why do you know loads of people from those groups who have tried and failed to join the police? Shouldn’t they al have passed?

Just a thought!

Just a few comments recieved this week. Three of them are from the same force, so we hopefully will not be getting any speeding tickets from their probationers for a while!:

Just to let you know I came to your course in Exeter in January, I have just had my results and scored 72% so passed and have a conditional offer with XX Police, Thank you for the course I’m sure it would have been a different outcome if I hadnt attended your course.

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.

There is an interesting article in Police Review this week about police recruitment. In essence, this says that in half the forces in the country, recruitment has come to a standstill. So, what does this mean if you are applying to the service? Well, in essence, things just got a lot harder. Firstly, if your local force decides not to recruit, then no matter how hard you wish, nothing will change that decision. So, you may need to think about applying to a force that is recruiting, and accept that you may have to travel or move. (Easier to do where force borders are near to you, harder if you live in the middle of a big county area!).

But even if your force is recruiting, don’t think you are unaffected. To begin with, the number and quality of applicants will go up, as the motivated candidates from Force X find it is not recruiting, and so apply to your force. So, your competition just got stronger.

Add to this mix the recession, and there is another factor. A lot of talented people cannot get jobs elsewhere, and will try the police. This means even more competition, as these people will also be applying to the areas that are still recruiting.

So, life becomes very hard indeed.  Fewer forces recruiting, fewer places available in those that are, more high quality applicants prepared to travel, all equates to pass marks and increased standards. The moral of this, inevitably, is that now is the time you really squeeze every mark you can out of the assessment centre. Forces will start to cherry pick those people who score highest at assessment, so just passing will not cut any ice. Being good will not be good enough.

Failing the assessment meanwhile will just put you at the back of an ever expanding queue to reapply.

Which of course is where police recruitment training courses come in. If you are below par, we will help drag you up to a pass grade. Of you are good, we will help you get better, so that you will probably get an earlier intake place.

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!)