Prior to attending your police assessment centre you will be provided with two information packs. The ‘Westshire Centre Welcome Pack’ is a pre read document designed to help you get into your fictional character ‘Customer Service Officer’. You do NOT need to know this document verbatim, but simply understand that you work for a large shopping mall with many stores, access to the police, customer service officers, and a security team present. It is useful to have knowledge of the ‘Equality Statement’ as this features in two of the four role-play exercises (Evans and Hayes); although present in each role-play room (and during your 5 mins preparation phase) it would be useful to fully understand this statement and have some idea which sections need to be explained to the role-actor.

Another useful page in this document is the written proposal document. Although the document itself provides no real explanation as to why it is present, it is in fact the template document you will use to write your written proposal exercises. Despite popular belief and its presence in many police assessment books, you have NOT since 2004, til at the time of writing this article been required to write a letter of response. So don’t worry about how to layout letters etc.

You also do NOT need to know how many security guards work at the centre, number of car park spaces etc. This is merely background reading to emphasise the size of the centre whom you work for.

The second document known as ‘Information for candidates booklet’ is useful and explains the assessment process in a relatively clear manner. The second half of the document outlines the competencies and their respective positive indicators (albeit not in a user friendly/clear way). In fact, most (but not all of them) are the very skills/behaviours you are being assessed against. For example, one indicator for Community and Customer Focus is to manage customer expectations, exactly how you do this is explained in the two articles below.

Again, you do not need to know this document verbatim, but it should be read and studied so you have at least some understanding of the process. Without question, we do strongly suggest that you attend one of the assessment centre courses run by our Police Recruitment Director and he will teach you all necessary skills and techniques to ensure you meet the required assessment centre pass marks.

If you want to learn the necessary skills and techniques to be successful at your police assessment centre, visit: www.policeapplication.co.uk

If you want to read reviews or simply find out what others candidates thought of the police application recruitment courses, visit: www.policeapplication.co.uk/reviews/

One positive indicator for the Community and Customer Focus competency is to manage customer expectations, just how do you do this? Well firstly you have to establish what their expectations are:

You walk in the room and the the role-actor say’s to you ‘I hope you are going to do something about that security guard‘. To establish their expectations at some point during the role-play you need to ask:

1) ‘Please tell me what you would like to see happen to the security guard?’

Alternately, you could ask ‘What you would like to achieve from today’s meeting?‘

Now you have established their requirements, you can now set about managing their expectations by explaining what action is going to be taken (or not in some cases). In most cases, you have policies/documents present (as part of the brief outside and inside the room) that you use to help you explain your decision and reasoning. Examples of managing clients expectations can be found in the Remaining Unbiased article below.

This article was written by a Police Recruitment Director. He is the owner and course tutor of policeapplication.co.uk a training provider for candidates interested in passing the police application and assessment centre process.

Race and Diversity is continually monitored throughout the police and PCSO assessment centre day. During the role-plays, despite popular belief NOT all of them contain inappropriate behaviour displayed by the role-actor that must be challenged. Race and Diversity is your ability to remain impartial and considerate towards others. (It’s not just about challenging inappropriate behaviour)

Even in the role-plays where challenging behaviour is not required, the scenario’s still contain elements or situations whereby you could act biased or with prejudice. Let’s consider the following example:

You are dealing with a complaint from a customer about the actions of the security team. A child was recently lost in the centre. The security team then acted in accordance and followed the ‘lost child’ policy. They were all dispatched with the appropriate description to look for the child and all CCTV camera’s were used. The child was eventually found by another member of the public. The customer wants the security team disciplined for not finding the child. Do you think the security team should be disciplined?

The answer is ‘NO’. Given that they acted in accordance and followed the ‘lost child’ policy it would be unfair to suggest or agree for disciplinary action to be considered. Thus, if you agreed with the customer and suggested that action would be taken against the security team, this could result in a ‘D’ grade for diversity.  Clearly, although the policy was followed, perhaps a review of the policy is required…

Let’s have a look at another possible scenario:

You are dealing with a complaint from a customer about the actions of a Customer Service Officer. The Customer Service Officer recently approached the child of the customer in the centre as they were climbing on a temporary wall. The centre has a policy that does not permit anyone climbing on walls. A statement from the Customer Service Officer confirms the situation took place and they did ask the child to remove themselves. During the course of the role-play the role actor informs you that the Customer Service Officer shouted at the child and asked them to remove themselves from the wall for Health and Safety reasons. The customer wants the Customer Service Officer sacked. Do you think the Customer Service Officer should be sacked?

The answer is ‘No action will be taken at this time’. Although they have enforced the policy, you should be concerned that the Customer Service Officer shouted (this is unprofessional), so you will want to speak to them before any decision is made. Again, if you agreed that they should be sacked, or completely defend the actions of guard, you run the risk of being awarded a grade ‘D’ in Race and Diversity for being biased. Clearly, although the policy was followed, it would be advisable to speak with the Customer Service Officer about the allegation of ‘shouting’ before any decision is made. You should reassure the role-actor that action will be taken if the guard’s behaviour following your investigation is found to be inappropriate. But until they have been spoken too, no action will be taken.

This article was written by our Police Recruitment Director. He is the owner and course tutor of policeapplication.co.uk a training provider for candidates interested in passing the police application and assessment centre process.