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.

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!)

We have been getting a  few queries from people boked nto the above courses. Can I just emphasise that these course WILL BE GOING AHEAD no matter what the weather. They are both big courses, and will represent a big chunk of those successful, and we guarantee they are going ahead. If you are thinking of attending but have not yet booked, there are at the moment three places left for Southampton and Four for Exeter.

January is always a busy month for us. Quite a few forces have got assessment cenres on the go, hence our courses in Exeter and Soutahmpton. TVP have has to postpone their assessments for this month due to bad weather, but we have sorted out a new course for those of our students affected by that. The new exercises interestingly enough put a bit more pressure on forces. The exercises issued in November are only vaild for six months. This means that say in TVP (Thames Valley Police), as they have had to delay they wll have to reschedule prior to the end of April, otherwise all the prep they have done for the new exercises will have to be skipped. This is why they have been so quick to come up wiht new dates, and yet another flaw in the NPIA system.

The new exercises continue to cause a few raised eyebrows amongst our people who have gone through them. As I have said, the emphasis on diversity is ridiculous, but preparation is as always the key. Having reviewed them, however, it is simply a matter of applying what we have always precahed, just with more frequency.

As if to prove what I am always saying, the new police assessment exercises that came in on Nov 1st 2009 and will run until the last day of April 2010 are again biased heavily towards dealing with diversity issues. I was discussing this with a contact who is involved in recruitment in Cheshire. Whilst it is arguably as to what extent ones ability to be a good police officer is tested, there is a obvious run on diversity issues. In three of the four role plays, there are elementsof either sexuality or race issues to be dealt with. And yet oddly enough, the two new written exercises deal with issues that could have been written to give existing specials and CSO’s an unfair advantage in the process. This is because they deal with such things as disorder and operational tactics that any police trained candidate would have  a good head start on. The interview questions are okay as far as it goes.

The morla of the story is to clearly understand how to deal with diversity. If you do not know how to challenge effectively, the way the police want you to, as opposed to the way you think it should be done, you will be dead. And ironically, this will catch out many specials and CSO’s who would normally have been expected to go through. The police culture is in some ways quite bullying, if you offend the establishment! Where existing specials and CSO’s go wrong is that they know that the senior force management will brush off uncomfortable truths regarding issues, and bury them. So, in assessment, they often try to do the same, and are failed by the same people who in a few months time, had they been successful, would have been telling them to bend the rules over detections or response figures!

The new police assessment exercises would suit diversity advisers better than police officers, but nevertheless, to pass, you need to understand all about diversity, the police way!

We have of course altered the emphasis of our course to reflect this new shift in the police assessment exercises.