Just heard this interesting peice of news. Norfolk Police have decided that for candidates who have passed the national police assessment system, they want them to do a presentation on how they will put into effect the force values and objectives. What  a complete load of rubbish. Lets just think about this for a minute. Lets ignore the fact that these candidates have just passed a national system, which, weak and flawed though it is, has been adopted by all English and Welsh forces, as well as BTP etc. This is the system which means in most forces, you will have been classed as having proved yourself as having the skills to be a police officer. But let us ignore it. Norfold clearly feel that this does not evidence clearly enough these skills, otherwise they would not feel the need to do something else QED. But why  a presentation? Why on that topic? This is the kind of presentation topic that would form part of an Inspectors board, not a poor bloody PC. How many average people give presentations? Especially if they are young, or from a disadvantaged background and are in the process of clawing themselves up? This presentation merely gives a big advantage to Specials and CSO’s (whihc may be no bad thing), while being exclusionary. Unless you hapen to be  asales rep, most people will not have  a clue how to start this. And before Norfolk police recruitment say this is the point, why don’t any other forces use presentations? Is it harder to police Norfolk than Merseyside or Manchester? Do Norfolk officers need to be better communicators than those working Brixton or Toxteth? No of course not. This is just someones bright idea to cut down numbers of successful aplicants, and has not been though through fully. I bet you this daft idea disappears within a year, and is never used again. Any takers?

Integrity is an issue that crops up all the time in the police recruitment process (and indeed the police). Whether at the police national assessment process, or at a final police interview, the issue is constantly being monitored. The theory is that any behaviour that is unethical is completely unacceptable, and that is what you must strive for. The reality in many forces is a bit more flexible. In Cheshire police, a little while back, images from the LAPD were circulated around the force by a control room operator. The images were LAPD crime scene photos of an incident where someone was being chased by the police, and had jumped off an elevated freeway to try and escape. Regrettably, they had missed the other freeway they were trying to jump onto, and fallen. In doing so, they had fallen onto a metal spiked fence, like that outside a park or church. The photos showed the persons head actually mounted in effect on the spike from the fall. The body was sitting at the base of the fence. The guy didn’t have a long neck, the fall had detached his head from his body. To make matters worse, he happened to be black. Another force had quickly taken action against everyone who had received this email. Cheshire however in the main had quiet words with people (the original source in the control room resigned). The point is that Cheshire Police took a very softly, softly approach to this, presumably hoping that they would get away without any adverse publicity (which they did). Other forces who were more honest about what had happened caught a lot of publicity. There was a rumour going about at the time that the main reason for this was that one of the control room operators involved was the daughter of a very senior officer (hence informal and non career damaging advice), but even I am not convinced that the force would be this blatant!

My point is that in police role plays and in interview, you need to be seen to be actively challenging inappropriate behaviour of any kind. If you do not (unless your dad is a senior officer), then you will be on your way to failing.

Just got this email today.

Hi John just thought i would let you know i have passed got 60%.I had been waiting ages for my results so i finally rang them today. The guy said that 60% is quite good……. not sure about that but its a pass so i am over the moon. Not got the break down of my score but obviously the role plays must have gone my way to a degree. Still not sure what, if anything i did wrong in the role play, your thoughts are always welcome. (i sent you a mail regarding this a few weeks ago)

My response is that what you did write or wrong does not matter, what DOES matter is the fact that you passed. The police assessment centre pass mark varies from either 50 or 60%, but provided you pass it who cares? One point worth making though is the value of doing a course. If the course gets you just a bare pass, what would you have go without it?

The key message whether it be the police interviews, police assessment centre or the police application form, is that you have got to work at it and prepare.

For those of you who have doen the police recruit assessment already, have a read of an earlier blog entry talkin about not having an autopsy on your performance before you get your result!

Had to write this quickly. Had three example forms this week where people had used examples of challenging behaviour that was bullying or discrimnatory (Q1 in the competency application section of the application form) without thinking about what they are saying. All involved situations where the applicant saw a series of actions, e.g. leting a colleague be sexist to a member of staff over several days/weeks, then they went to speak to their colleague, checked they were unhappy, then finally did something about it! THIS IS TOTALLY WRONG! Think about what they are really saying. 1. They saw a series of events they knew were wrong, but did nothing initially. Therefore they are allowing this to carry on. Not good. 2. They are saying that if their mate had not anted them to do anything, they would not have, otherwise why ask them? We want to hear examples where as soon as you notice the behaviour, you challenge it there and then, to set an example to others. Anything else is ducking your responsibiity!

I have had  a few issues this week with the types of example that people are using for both police interviews and indeed the police assessment interview. Two questions that always crop up in one format or another are challenging innappropiate behaviour (on the form) and working as part of a team (on the interview). Candidates pick some really weak examples for these. In terms of challenging  behaviour, we are constantly getting forms where someone has been at a bus stop, some yob has made a racist/sexist/homophobiccomment, and the candidate has told them off, so the offender walks away. This is a very weak example. What you need to do is find some example where there has been a chain of behaviour, you have challenged it immediately it comes to your attention,  you have a long explanation to the offender about why what they are doing is wrong, they eventually see this, and apologise to all concerned. (Make sure you challenge it as soon as you know about it though. Otherwise, if you let it go for a bit, it can be argued you are allowing it to get worse!) If this takes place somewhere like work, all the better, as it is morally harder to challenge your mates, than someone you do not know. Against this background, you may be able to see where the bus stop example falls down.

Second bugbear this week was on the interview question on teamwork. People always want to tell us about when they were in the street/at work etc and someone else got hurt. They then try to say that a group of passersby/staff/friends worked a s a team on the casualty. This is just too superficial, and in reality probably you handed over to the ambulance crew as soon as they got there. We want to see evidence that you ideally volunteered fo a big event, maybe like a charity fair, or a stock take at work. You realised that the task was too big for you alone, so you got  a team involved, who had different skills to you that were also needed. You planned how the task was going to be done, allocating resources by experience and priority. You completed the task on time/budget, and got a thank you letter. Hurrah! Again, against this context, the drunk in the swimming pool will not score highly.

You need to apply this logic to every exercise. Being average when thousands of people are applying for every place just does not do it!