“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!

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,”

One question did come up on the feedback though, in terms of evidence for the interview question in terms of the diversity issue. Firstly, one should remember that the questions (and indeed the role plays and written exercises) stay the same, word for word, nationally, for six months. (It used to be 12 until NPIA realised the internet exists and that candidates tell each other what is on the assessment. They have tried to counter this by the six month change, which just half’s an absolutely massive flaw in the system into a merely massive one!). What this means is that as candidates are asked the same questions word for word, and often have very similiar backgrounds, the type of responses given to the interviewers tends to be the same or very similiar (another flaw in the system). Over the weekend, one student made the point that whilst I was suggesting types of answers that are good include race, sexuality and religion, my colleague appeared to suggest that these were a bit obvious now. Instead he suggested disability as being more “original”. Whilst I actually agree with this, it only works if you have that experience. If not, stick with the tried and tested topics of race etc. It is true something a bit different is more interesting for the interviewer, but as we prove on the course when we go through probable questions, most people will give such poor answers that you giving a common (but relevant) example will still mark you out as being a star. For police assessments, the trick is, as always, do your preparation and have examples ready to go.