The Law Enforcement Hiring Process (Hint: You might not be cut out for this job)

I originally was intending to target this blog towards recruits who are in the academy. Since receiving countless emails from people seeking a career in law enforcement, I decided to write a post answering the most common question I receive - What is the hiring process like? Not only do I want to describe a basic hiring process, but I'd also like to take the opportunity to help the overwhelmed background investigators by convincing those who really aren't cut out for this job that they should not apply. Sound harsh? Maybe... but this isn't the type of job that we should allow people to have just because they have the desire and put an application in.

Listen, we have all heard the stereotypical theories as to why someone chose to become a cop. "They were all bullied in high school and became cops so they could feel the power trip." Or how about, "They couldn't get a job doing anything else so they became cops." When people hear either of these assumptions or ones like it, it starts to put in the minds of people that becoming a cop is an easy, fallback career. This could not be farther from the truth. If you aren't familiar with what an average law enforcement agency puts an applicant through to earn their badge, let me give you a glimpse into the process and let you decide if it's a career for idiots with low self-esteem.

Let's start with the basic of basics. If you have been convicted of a felony, snorted coke or smoked meth recently, have beaten your ex-girlfriend or a small child to a bloody pulp, or been a part of any similar circumstance...do everyone a favor and don't apply. It's a waste of your time, the police agency's time, and tax-payer's money. You're not going to get hired. I'm serious. If you're thinking to yourself that the agency might change their minds once you get a chance to tell your story, they're not going to change their minds. You are too much of a liability for a government agency to hand a gun and a badge to and send out to the streets of your city in a patrol car. I congratulate you if you feel like you have turned your life around, but you can't take back the bad decisions you have made. They are a part of your history. Put yourself in the shoes of the police agency you wish to apply for. If an agency hired a guy who committed a violent assault on his ex-girlfriend, and later is the subject of an excessive force complaint by a female, it's going to be a tough and expensive road for that agency when it is discovered they didn't screen him out of the application process for such a violent offense. Besides that, cops are being crucified in the media these days if you haven't noticed. They put a microscope onto any bad decision they can get their hands on and we all suffer from the undeserved bad image. We really don't want a partner who we have to worry about bringing more dirt into our house.

Now onto the application process. Check with the agency you want to apply for and find out what their education requirements are. Most agencies these days require at least some college units and prefer four-year degrees. There are some agencies that only require a high school diploma, but not many. Even if an agency only requires a high school degree and that's the extent of your education, you will still have college educated competition that will make you a tough sell. For many agencies, you can simply submit an application online. This initial application is your ticket into the hiring process. Remember, you will constantly be evaluated and can be disqualified at any step in the process, especially if you're caught lying about anything.

If you're application is accepted, you can expect to be invited to take a written exam and/or a physical agility test, and not necessarily in that order. The written exam will test your reading and writing ability. It is typically a multiple choice test. I'd like to say it's a basic exam, but it has been severely underestimated by many people. I've personally had conversations with college educated applicants whom I have told they wouldn't have to worry about the written exam. I have stopped telling people this after receiving a few phone calls from these college educated applicants telling me they failed and would not be moving on to the next stage of the process. On top of this, some agencies require a writing sample. This will be hand written, so if you've relied on spell-check your whole life, this will be magnified in this portion.

The physical agility exam is generally not a challenging portion, but agencies have the prerogative to raise the bar and make it tougher. If they stick to the basic state requirements, it is basically going to weed out those applicants who thought they could put down the bag of Doritos, turn the TV off, and show up for a few simple obstacles. The basic test is in no way indicative of what kind of physical shape you are in. Physical agility tests commonly consist of a simple obstacle course, wall climb, dummy drag, and a short run. As I mentioned earlier, agencies can add more events to this test, the most common being a mile and a half run. All of the events are timed. The faster you complete the event, the higher your score. You can complete every event and still look like an out of shape applicant on paper if you barely complete each event with slow times. Being in good physical shape is an important attribute to being a law enforcement officer, but it is not the most important. I say this because there are many applicants who work very hard to be in great shape and believe that because they are really strong or can fight, that they would make great cops. All cops should work to be in great shape, but it is only one aspect of the job.

After the agency has whittled the applicant pool down a little from those who failed the written or physical agility tests, the agency you're applying with might conduct an oral interview. Not all agencies do this. If the one you want to work for does, you can expect to sit across a table from both law enforcement and civilian representatives and be asked a series of questions. The questions will be designed to assess your life experience, your ability to problem solve, communication skills, level of motivation and interest, interpersonal skills, and your community involvement. It gives the agency the opportunity to get a feel for what type of person you are and how you handle the pressure of an oral panel.

Next, you can expect to be moved on to the backgrounds portion of the process. This part can take a while. Usually the first thing you will be asked to do is fill out a personal history questionnaire (PHQ). What is in a PHQ? Well...everything. If it isn't in the PHQ, it will be in your backgrounds interview. "What is your full name? Where were you born? Give us your job history and contact information for your supervisors from each job. Now give us the names and contact information for all of your ex-girlfriends/boyfriends...all of them. Tell us about crimes you have committed, even if you haven't been caught. Have you ever had sex with an animal?" The questions run the gamut as you can see. Think about how many times you have had a conversation about a cop doing something bad where the question is asked, "How did that guy get through the background process? Don't they screen these people?" Yeah...we do, but as detailed as the background investigation is, a perfect process to weed out every person who could potentially make a bad decision as a cop simply does not exist. SO what do they do with this PHQ? Well, they read it. Then they call your friends, family, former lovers, roommates, coworkers, and landlords and ask them all about you. "What is John like when he gets angry? How many times have you seen him get angry? Is he dependable? How would you describe John? Why did you and John break up? Is he an honest person?" They gather a lot of information about you and then they call you in for an interview because they want to have a chat with you about what they learned. What is the chat like?

"Hi. Tell me about yourself. Where have you worked? Did you quit or were you fired? Why did you quit or why were you fired? Tell me about a time you got angry and how you handled the situation. Have you been in a physical fight before? How many times? When was the last fight? Why did the fight start? What was the outcome? Tell me about the tickets you have on your record. How about drugs? Which drug(s)? When did you take these drugs? How many times? How often? Who did you do these drugs with? Give us their full name and contact information so we can talk to them about your drug use. Why did you start? Why did you stop? When was the first time? When was the last time? Which racial slurs have you uttered in your life for any reason? So you're saying that a racial slur has never been spoken from your lips your entire life? Are you being honest? Because we did speak with all of your former roommates. Hmmm...interesting. Why did you say that racial slur? What about this other racial slur? Ever cheat on a test? Ever stolen anything from an employer? You mentioned in your PHQ that you once stole from a store. Let's talk about that." And it goes on and on and on. I hope you were honest in your PHQ, because when you're getting rapid fire questions, it sure would be difficult to remember which lies you documented in your PHQ.

So now that you have documented your personal history and endured a lengthy interview to find out more about the details of your life, if you weren't disqualified based on an unsavory event in your life, you might move on to the polygraph exam. You sit in a chair and get wired up to a machine that pays attention to your pulse rate, your body movement, and your pace of breathing so they can ask you questions and see how your body reacts. When people are lying, their bodies often tell on them through physiological responses. What questions do they ask? Well, it's different for everyone. They basically find some things in your PHQ and interview that they might not be so sure about and interrogate you about them. They often will tell you on the spot when they believe they have caught you in a lie. If you haven't figured it out by this point, the backgrounds process is much easier if you just don't lie. If you're thinking right now that there are some skeletons in your closet that could disqualify you, but you're pretty sure you could keep that closet door closed tight through the backgrounds process, you're the guy/girl I was talking about in the third paragraph who I said shouldn't apply. We don't want you and we don't need you. You aren't cut out for this job.

Did you pass the background investigation? Yes? Ok, now you will either move on to a medical exam or the psych exam. For the medical exam, they send you to a doctor for an overall health evaluation. Lots of health questions, they draw blood, you have to poop on a stick and give it to them, pee in a cup, run on a treadmill while hooked up to a machine, and then a doctor signs off on you or disqualifies you. Not really a way to study or prepare for the medical exam, and it's the same for the psych exam. If you don't have mental problems, you will feel like you do by the time you finish the test. It is over a thousand questions and you are asked many of the same questions worded slightly different each time. You get a score based off of the results and then you get an appointment with a psychologist or psychiatrist to talk about the results of the exam. Then the psych doctor either signs off on you or disqualifies you based on your score and their evaluation.

If you pass the medical and psych exams, congratulations, you are done with your part of the application process. Does this mean you're hired? No, my friend it does not. Your application file now gets reviewed by the agency for them to make a subjective decision on whether to hire you. They might decide that while you did pass everything, they just don't feel like you'd be a good fit. That's right...you could potentially pass everything they throw at you and not get the call, and there's nothing you can do about it. Just because you passed, doesn't mean you have the right to the job.

If they do decide to hire you, congratulations! It would be a pretty good feeling right? Well it is, but remember that you weren't hired as a law enforcement officer at this point. You were hired to be a recruit. What does that mean? It means get ready to attend the police academy. Now, I can spend hours writing about what the academy is like, and you can read some of my other posts for more on the subject, but I will give a general overview here. You will spend an average of 6-months, full-time, attending the academy. You will be tested academically, mentally, and physically. You will attend lectures, take written tests, scenario-based performance tests, physical fitness tests, firearms tests, driving tests, complete never ending homework assignments, write memos for messing up, get yelled at by recruit training officers, interview mock victims and suspects, learn agency policies, memorize the code of ethics, learn how to properly and safely apply handcuffs, fight a big guy in a protective suit with a useless foam baton, learn ground fighting, how to verbally de-escalate a tense situation, learn first aid, how to identify illegal drugs, how to deal with mentally ill people, how to identify illegal weapons, learn the laws governing search and seizure, laws of arrest, how to write a ticket, and countless other subjects. Not only that, but you only get two chances to pass any of these tests. If you fail it once, you get one chance at a retest. Fail a second time and your shot at becoming a law enforcement officer has just come to an end. No, there are no exceptions. If you still want to pursue this career after failing out, you will have to go back up to paragraph four and resubmit an application to begin the process again. The academy is not an easy step for most people and many people fail out at average rates of up to 30%. The worst part is, you might pass the academy and still not find yourself with a badge at the end. An agency might pay you for 6-months, and decide at the end that even though you passed, they really didn't like your attitude. Maybe they thought you were late too many times or didn't like that you failed to notify them when you failed a test. Whatever the reason may be, the agency can say, "Thank you for being a recruit for us, but we are not going to hire you as an officer. Good day." It's true that you now have a certificate of completion of the basic police academy, but you don't have a job. Head back up to paragraph four and start by submitting an application somewhere else to begin the process. The good part is if you get through it all again, you shouldn't have to attend the academy again provided your certificate is still valid. Then again, an agency might have the policy that they like to evaluate their applicants in an academy and have you attend again. It happens.

So you got through hiring, passed the academy, and were offered a job as a law enforcement officer. Congratulations! Here's your badge, gun, and a load of responsibility. Free and clear right? Nope... Your next step is a field training program. Now it doesn't sound like much of an obstacle since you're already a cop and it's just training right? That's not exactly true. Depending on the agency, you will now be spending the next 3-5 months under the close observation of multiple training officers who teach you how to apply what you have learned to this point, and provide daily, detailed evaluations of your performance to the agency. Not everyone who passes an academy is cut out for this job. Sometimes the decision is made by the rookie officer and sometimes the agency doesn't like what they see. There is not just one reason someone might fail out of the training program. It could be that your report writing is terrible, your officer safety is poor, you freeze up during contentious situations, you don't know how to read a map and navigate to calls, you're rude to citizens or partners, you don't remember the law well enough and violate people's rights, you fail a test (the tests do not end after the academy), you wreck a patrol car one too many times, you cave under the stress of driving fast with your lights and sirens on, or maybe you get caught lying. In any case, you might not find out that you aren't cut out for this job until you have your badge and are driving in a patrol car responding to calls.

The next step after passing the field training program is getting through your probationary period, which varies from department to department. During a probationary period you can be released at the agency's discretion. You will be under the watchful eye of your sergeant and senior officers as you handle completely unpredictable situations, many of which you just can't prepare yourself for. You will be making split decisions with the life of another human being at stake, deciding whether to arrest someone and strip them of their freedom, be a counselor to little kids and crying victims, comfort the loved ones of deceased people, be yelled at by the citizen who ran a red light because you're writing them a ticket, listen to two sides of a story where neither person is telling the whole truth and try to figure out what happened, respond to traffic accidents and discover dead bodies at the scene, fight with a violent criminal to place them in handcuffs so you can take them to jail, point your gun at people who are posing a threat to you or someone else, search a building you have never been in for a person you have never seen, scour a city trying to find a lost elderly woman with dementia who went missing, deliver the news to a mother that her child was shot and killed, give CPR to a man while his children watch you with tears and hope in their eyes, put a tourniquet on a victim bleeding out from a stab wound, try to convince a suicidal person that putting the knife down and coming with you in handcuffs to the hospital is better than taking their own life, shoot a deer who was struck by a vehicle to put it out of its misery, give stickers to little kids who still think cops are heroes, speak at neighborhood meetings and field questions about how you and your partners are going to stop their residential burglary problem, have dinner with and laugh with your partner and then 30-minutes later respond to their desperate call for help over the radio as they are in a fight for their life, explain to a 5-year-old why taking their mother to jail and sending them to a children's shelter is the best decision for them. Do all that and more and then go home each night and try to forget about the things you have seen and be the best father, mother, wife, or husband that you can be. Don't turn on the TV either. It's better to avoid the anger that builds up when you hear some news reporter who found the one cop in America that night who made a stupid mistake and paint the entire profession with that broad brush of incompetent or racist cops.

Sound like something you want to take on? If so, then by all means give it a go. If you are cut out for this job, you will love every minute of it. If you aren't cut out for this job, don't take it personal. It doesn't mean you aren't a good person or a hard worker. There are plenty of good, smart, hard workers in the world who just wouldn't make great cops. It doesn't mean you are a failure. It just means you found out that being a cop is not the right fit for you. Be grateful for that.

Stop Yelling At Me!

Recruits enter the academy with a wide variety of life experience. Some have never held a real job in their life. Some have worked at a fro-yo shop or a movie theater. Some have worked in a jail. Some have extensive military combat experience while others have been law enforcement officers at other agencies and didn't maintain their certification. 

It might not seem like a big deal that people have different life experiences prior to the academy. After all, you all still have to learn the same material, you receive the same instruction, and have to pass the same tests right? True...but can the academy staff just present all the material in the same manner and expect that everyone in the class will understand it enough to pass the tests? 

Let me illustrate my point. If you were to take on the task of teaching algebra to a group of people with all different backgrounds, you can expect that everyone has different skill levels in mathematics. Some probably grew up hating math, did poorly in every math class they had, and were glad when school was over because they knew they would never spend another second of their life on it again. Others didn't like math, but they could do it and put just enough effort into it to pass. Most did well but just didn't care enough to push themselves to excellence. A few (very few) loved math and aced everything related to math. Stick with me on this.

Regardless of their experience, you have this group in your classroom and you are supposed to teach them algebra. Your goal at the end of the block of instruction is for the entire group to pass an algebra test that demonstrates their competency on the subject matter. So there's a decision you have to make at the beginning of the class. You're an expert in algebra so you're capable of teaching at any level. You have four different groups of students if you break them down by skill level. Which level do you present the material at to achieve the greatest success? 

If you present it to the lowest skill level, they will take a long time to grasp the material. The rest of the class will be ready to move much quicker and the class won't progress fast enough to cover all the material by the end. If you teach towards the experts and move at their pace, you will lose the lowest skill level quickly, and the mediocre students will have trouble keeping up. Some may pass the test but you'll lose a lot. Remember your goal...you want everyone to pass the test.

Generally the answer is that you teach toward the lower end of the "in between" groups. You teach low enough so there's a chance for success for the lower skill level students, but high enough for the class to cover all the material by the end and keep the interest of the more skilled students. Will you reach your goal? Probably not, but it should get you the highest success rate possible without making the class longer, getting tutors for students, or cheating. But the failures won't be the result of you not doing your job. The failures will be from those not prepared enough, not motivated enough, or just not smart enough in math. 

So you can see the challenges faced by the academy staff. It's a factor in everything they teach. One of the things they have to prepare you for is how to face the adversity that will surely come in this career. Adversity comes in many forms, but right now let's discuss the suspects who are professionals at getting under the skin of law enforcement officers. 

I'm sure everyone reading this has no problem telling themselves that they would never let a suspect get under their skin. Everyone thinks they know how they will react in a given situation. If that's the case, why do we see videos of so many officers losing their cool? Have you seen the video of the officer on the cell phone and a kid comes up to him with a baggie of marijuana and asks the officer if he wants to buy some weed? The officer gets off the phone and goes right toward the kid with every intent of arresting him. What he doesn't know is the kid is a magician and makes the marijuana disappear before the officer could seize it. The officer flips out and pushes the kid against the wall to search him. He can't find the weed, gets incredibly frustrated, and starts yelling at the kid. He finally sends the kid away, but follows him briefly so he can continue barking at him. At one point he tells the kid to "quit talking!" at a moment when the suspect wasn't saying anything. The magician approached the officer with every intent to get under his skin and the officer basically lifts his skin up and lets the magician jump right in with both feet!

It's easy to watch the videos with hindsight and the time to think about them long enough to point out where you think you would've done things different. The truth is, you have no idea until you have experienced it first hand.

The academy needs to do what they can to make sure the recruits are prepared as much as possible to endure those types of suspects. The ramifications of sending law enforcement officers out unprepared are too risky. What happens when an officer loses their cool when a suspect is trying to get under their skin? An unprofessional verbal exchange? Unlawful arrest resulting from "contempt of cop?" Excessive force? Any or all of the above on a YouTube video? It's not an area we can afford to ignore in our training.

So how do we prepare recruits for these situations? Tell them they will happen and to be prepared? That's part of it. Show them videos? Sure. How about try to get under their skin? Yep!

Do you think military vets are going to get a whole lot out of being yelled at and told to go run some hills or do some push-ups when they screw up? They won't flinch or even blink! "Thank you sir! May I have another?!" But how will the 21-year-old recruit who still lives at home, mom makes him dinner every night and has never had a real job react? I can tell you from experience with many of these recruits that some will react well, some will get angry, some won't have any idea what to do, and some will cry. Does crying mean they aren't cut out for this? Not necessarily. Crying means we have training to do! At this point, crying was their reaction to an overwhelming situation they have never experienced before. They've never had someone in their face yelling at them and telling them their performance was completely unacceptable, that they should just quit now, and explaining how unworthy they are of wearing a recruit uniform. 

RTO's face the same challenge in this area as your teacher did in your algebra class. How much stress do we put on them to make sure they are inoculated enough to survive that idiot suspect? If we spend all of our time yelling to make sure those with zero experience with adversity get it, we will neglect other important areas of this career. If we don't do any because we know the military guys don't need it, we underprepare those who do need it. 

"But haven't you read about how to get the most out of the Millennial generation? They don't respond well to negative criticism and yelling." Yeah, I've read all about it. If you want to be in a job where you get a pat on the back when you do well and sugar coated gum drops to chew on while someone is tiptoeing around explaining where you could "perhaps improve a little more," then go purchase your makeup starter kit and hold cosmetics parties at your house. Invite all your friends. I hear they're decent money and a lot of fun! This is not that kind of job. The streets aren't all rainbows and cha chas. Criminals do not give a rat's ass what generation you are a part of or how you best respond to criticism, and it's because of that fact that your academy staff shouldn't give a rat's ass when it comes to this type of training either. 

So will the RTO's yell and scream and call you nasty things? If they're doing their best to prepare you, they will. How will you respond? If you've never experienced it, the correct answer is, "I'm not sure." Admit that, and you're on your way to preparing yourself. Don't admit it and you'll just continue to be scared or angry at your RTO's through the whole academy and you won't learn a thing.

So then what? They yell at me and I love it, or I get pissed, or I freeze up, or I cry. However you react, take the experience and move on. The next time it happens, take the experience and move on. Each time it happens, you will realize it doesn't have the same shock effect to your system. Pretty soon you're actually listening to the words coming out of the RTO's mouth and responding correctly and not really noticing the yelling or the invasion of personal space because they do it often enough that you're used to it. Then you'll start noticing that the RTO's don't yell as much anymore. We watch for those moments when recruits change and are able to operate efficiently under that type of stress. They stop clenching their jaw and turning red-faced when you give them an order that is completely unfair and they just deal with it. That's when I know that training aspect is no longer necessary. I look forward to those moments because it's actually refreshing to speak to recruits in a normal tone. 

It's not because we're trying to turn recruits into a bunch of robots who follow orders no matter what and don't think on their own. There's plenty of training to make sure recruits can think critically on their own. We want recruits to keep a cool head, have their wits about them, and be able to think critically and rationally when a suspect is making comments about your haircut, your ugly face, your wife and kids, your small breasts, your sexual orientation, the color of your skin, your height, that mole on your face and the hair growing out of it that you're self conscious about, or when they are screaming at the top of their lungs and challenging you to a fight. Your first time experiencing that kind of stress simply cannot be on the streets. We owe it to you to give it to you in the academy.

For you military guys and girls who are thinking about your drill sergeants and drill instructors, the academy will not approach that level. You will be introduced to a much different type of stress, don't get me wrong. I have yet to have a military vet tell me that they didn't experience intense stress at the academy in a different way. But unless you get an RTO who was a DS or a DI, the yelling and screaming will just be a milder version of what you've grown accustomed to. It will be your job to help your fellow recruits learn how to deal with it. You're a team. The recruit you help deal with the stress of the RTO's might be the recruit who helps you pass the scenario you are struggling in. That recruit also may be the partner who comes to your aid in an emergency situation someday. It's in your best interest to help train them well. 

So stop screaming at you? I can't do that. I care too much about your safety, my safety, and the safety of all of my partners who are counting on me to prepare you to be their beat partners someday. Thank me for it later.

Accountability

"There wasn't enough time."

"Nobody reminded me."

"My homework got left at home."

"My alarm clock didn't go off."

Each of these excuses has something in common. None of them insinuate that the person who is giving the excuse is actually at fault. The blame all rests on someone or something else. In Spanish, when someone forgets their keys at home, the literal translation would have the person say, "My keys forgot me." As ridiculous as that sounds, people use phrases that give the same message using different words all the time. Most people don't even realize they are doing it, but it makes mistakes easier for people to swallow. The problem is, it feeds attitudes in people that they can do no wrong.

If there is one common issue I see with the majority of recruits entering the academy, it is that they have not been taught to take responsibility for their mistakes. Because of the economy, a lot of young people are living with their parents for much longer. It's not uncommon anymore for someone to live with their parents into their mid to late twenties. The problem is, these young adults don't get out of the mode of being a son or daughter and their parents treat them just like they did when they were 17. The younger generation doesn't spend a lot of time working through hardship and challenges because their parents bail them out.

Does it sound like I'm making unfair generalizations? I am. I realize this isn't the case with everyone and there are plenty of young people who have fought through challenges and experienced plenty of hardship in their lives without the support of parents at all. So where am I coming from? Well...my personal experiences with academy classes. In my classes, those recruits who haven't learned personal accountability far outnumber those who have. It's frustrating for both recruit and RTO. The recruit fights it intensely because they don't see what the big deal is and don't think they are in the wrong (go figure). When the recruit finally starts growing up and realizing it's ok to be wrong and they don't die when they can openly admit it, real learning can start taking place.

So my advice? As you expect, I advise you to start owning up to your mistakes. Stop blaming other people. Stop trying to dilute your responsibility by dragging other people into it. Own it! People will start respecting you more and be more willing to help and train you when they know you aren't arrogant and unteachable.

Start leaving behind the phrases I included at the beginning of this post and start changing them to:

"I didn't manage my time well."

"I forgot."

"I am disorganized and left my homework at home when I left the house."

"I didn't pay close enough attention and didn't set my alarm clock correctly."

Notice they all start with "I" and they all own the mistake!

Excellence

This is my first blog post, and I want my first post to let readers know who this is intended for, why I might have something to offer regarding success in a police academy, and what you can expect to get out of this blog. I've never written a blog before, but I've noticed a lack of material out there that could help recruits prepare themselves prior to entering a basic police academy. I am a recruit training officer (R.T.O.) at a basic police academy in California and have graduated several classes. Prior to putting in to be an R.T.O., I was a field training officer for several years at an agency with over 1,000 badged personnel. I've done some other things in my career, but those two are the most relevant for what I want to get across to my readers.

In my years at the academy, I've seen a number of recruits fail, quit, just do enough to get to the graduation stage, and push themselves past their limits to achieve excellence. By the nature of my assignment, I never have the opportunity to speak with recruits to give them advice on how to better prepare themselves prior to starting. Additionally, I don't have the chance while they are recruits to really spend a lot of time with them individually and give them valuable advice to help them get the most out of their academy experience. With a large class, I might get a handful of one-on-one talks with a recruit, and they are very valuable training moments, but it's never enough time to say everything I want to. I am hoping this will give me that opportunity.

The information I'm going to write is intended for those who are preparing themselves to enter an academy. Whether that means you are putting yourself through as a non-affiliate, trying to get hired and be sent to an academy, or you have received an offer letter from an agency to sponsor you and you have a start date, you are who I am writing this information down for. This is not an advice column on how to get hired by an agency. I have never worked in backgrounds and it seems like my department changes what they are looking for with every new hiring pool anyway. Even if I had worked in backgrounds, every agency emphasizes different qualities in what they are looking for in a new hire and I'm not willing to tackle that dragon. This is also not a discussion board for cops to offer their opinions and get in Internet brawls with each other about what they think is the right way to do things. If you are a LEO and have some valuable advice or insight on one of the topics, shoot me an email and I'll include your comments if it's relevant. But if you simply want to know what you can do to get yourself ready...read on.

In the following posts you will read about both mental and physical preparation. Everything from your attitude, how to prepare your uniform, and physical demands, to dealing with the R.T.O.'s and/or drill instructors will be covered here. I am going to be as candid and blunt as possible. If you aren't willing to make any personal changes and believe you are the perfect candidate who would be a blessing to any agency, and they better act fast because you won't be on the market long...do me a favor and leave my blog. Come back when you have found some humility and might actually get something out of it. Law enforcement is filled with way too many badges who believe they are bigger than the profession. You are a problem in the academy and an even bigger problem on the streets.

One of the things I tell my recruits is that during their time with me, I'm going to hold a mirror up and be very frank with them about their deficiencies that could cause them problems in this profession. If they don't have thick skin and a willingness to make some changes, it might hurt a little. Some people don't like being told that they are lazy, passive, overweight, or that they have a quitter's attitude. So if you want to learn what qualities make an excellent recruit and set the stage for becoming a great officer...read on. And feel free to send me emails. I will do my best to email you back with answers or cover your question in a future post.

MOTIVATE!!!