And speaking of moving up the ladder, remember all those police traits you’ve read about in our Police Ready blogs? Keep them in your mind at all times and enhance them, as moving up and moving on means those traits better be up front and visible. Moving up also means keeping yourself at the fore front of the latest developments in policing all across Canada and internationally.

Knowing what is happening in other communities may assist you in doing your job better, but more importantly, if you study other policing methods and become an innovator on the job, guess what happens? Right, you become a likely candidate for promotion. But, promotion is more than just knowing what other forces are doing. It involves always upgrading your skills, diversifying your abilities and taking on new tasks.

Being a cop does not mean being stagnant. When a cop stays in one place too long and does not make the effort to expand their horizons, their abilities, their knowledge and skills, they get overlooked. It’s as simple as that. If you want to move up the ladder, you have to keep not only your body in tiptop shape, but also your mind.

Think about it this way. If you keep doing the same job day after day and make no changes in how you do it, or tried to improve it, how interested would you be in your job after several years? The answer likely is, not very. Your policing career is what you make of it. So if you want to succeed in your chosen career, then you need to make the most of it at all times.

This is another one of those “Oh boy, I hope I never get into that kind of situation,” situations. Really, what the examiners want to know from you is if you demonstrate the ability to turn a blind eye to minor crimes or the infraction of lesser rules if there is a larger principle at stake. Are you able to take that risk and “go for it” for the overall greatest good? It may mean breaking a lesser law or procedure, but things will ultimately turn out fine because there was something else worth a lot more at stake.

Let’s try a quick example here: you arrest a drug dealer who has been hanging around the high school peddling drugs, but during the course of questioning her, she says her contact is a well-known higher up in the Mayor’s office. She says she will help you get him arrested. At this point, the higher good would be to go after the well-known drug contact and allow the smaller fish to swim after providing help. Could you do that?

Since we’re using examples, here is another one for a different scenario. You are ordered by your commanding officer to take some case evidence out of the drug locker because he needs to inspect it. You know that it is not his case. Do you go along with him and do what he says and then later say: “I was just following orders,” or do you stand up and say something? You know this would be a serious error in judgment on your part as well as his. Will you risk censure by your peers to take a stand and do the right thing  – refuse to get the evidence and tell the officer whose case it is?

Sometimes being a cop is not an easy job, is it? You may never find yourself in that kind of a situation – ever – but you need to know what you would do if you were faced with something like that, and so do your examiners. Like “Doctor, heal thyself,” think “Recruit, know thyself.”

You are in an organization where it is essential to follow orders. Following lawful and reasonable ones is your job. While you may find the order offensive, it has to be followed. Here is the question: do you know the difference between a lawful and unlawful order? And if in that knowing, will you still carry out the order that you don’t agree with? This is one situation that is definitely likely to happen during your career, and possibly even more than once. So, what would you do?

Those questions go to the heart of being honest and standing up for what you believe is right, and actually IS the right thing to do. That is what being a cop is all about. If you have that backwards and want to be liked by others for following the “pack” rather than being honest, this is one popularity contest you will likely lose. The ramifications tend to be serious if you are caught out. It doesn’t say much about your integrity either.

Your examiners will be looking for whether or not you would also compromise your ethics (integrity again) and allow police officers that may be committing a crime to continue to do so. What you need to have here is intolerance, not for the job, but for corruption. Minor misconduct by an officer is one thing, but rank corruption is another. Will you stand up for justice?

These scenarios and questions make ideal conversation topics for a forum or for online chats with your fellow recruits. Try asking them these questions and see what kind of responses you get. You’d be surprised at the different points of view you will run into.

If you are praised for something you did not do and immediately point that fact out, you have something the examiners highly value, and you need to be proud of yourself. This kind of behaviour goes directly, once again, to your ethics, reliability, honesty and integrity. Imagine what taking that credit will mean to others if they find out later that you did NOT do what you implied you did. Now who has egg on their face?

Above all else, a cop has to be honest to the core. His or her integrity has to be a deep ingrained thing that is second nature, like breathing. Your reliability has to be totally rock solid and you have to be who you say you are. You have to do what you say you will do. If you tend to want all the attention and the limelight even if it’s not deserved, think twice about becoming a police officer. There is no room for loners. Cops need to be team players.

This brings us to the one other trait a cop needs – the ability to be a member of a team. This ability also includes following and accepting orders, and the leadership of others, despite how you may feel about them. It also means working with those who either have more or less experience than you do and doing it willingly. If you have hang ups about their experience, race, creed, color, religious or sexual orientation, then you certainly have a major problem that needs to be addressed before attempting to become a police officer.

What the heck is a “police personality” anyhow? Well if you spend any time online trying to find out, you might come away a touch horrified. The classic police personality supposedly includes hostility, insecurity, suspicion, authoritarianism, conservatism and cynicism, not to mention machismo, bravery and aggression.

These traits will likely remind you of the movie Lethal Weapon with Mel Gibson as a super cop. Or it might make you recall the Denzel Washington flick called Training Day that portrayed a not so nice – ok, call it sadistic – cop throughout the film. This is a large part of the problem most police officers face today, the media’s perception of who and what they are.

This should strike you as being really odd because you have already likely spent an enormous amount of time being screened in order to make sure you are NOT a person with any of the traits we just mentioned. In reality, what the screening does is two things – select the best candidates and select those who have the particular personality traits suitable for policing.

Now the interesting thing about some of the screening tests, done by psychologists, is that although the tests don’t usually tell you what a police personality IS, it will tell you what it is NOT. So, the definition of what a cop is not has come about by taking apart profiles of unsuccessful applicants.

Don’t let any of this throw you off your stride. You know as well as we do that the police officers that protect and serve your community are just normal people like you and the rest of your classmates (assuming you are in a police foundation course). The media perception of whom and what you are is just that – a perception, and a poor one at that.

Sure there are rogue cops that have made the news for doing something wrong or crooked ones who have been caught selling seized drugs. However, by and large, most of the cops today are hard working, well meaning, reliable and honest people just trying to do a tough job under tough circumstances.

Do you readily accept extra work or responsibility without immediately expecting to receive extra pay? There are many kinds of people in just about any workforce and some of them are happier when they have their precise duties clearly defined. However, should some of these people be asked to do something outside their job “definition”, they want to know how much they will get for doing it.

Why is this important to know if you are a cop? It’s important to know if you are a cop because it tells the commanding officer that you will not volunteer for extra responsibility unless you know up front whether you will be getting more money to do so. If you see police work in this light, then this is the wrong job for you. There are many instances when other cops or even citizens need help after your shift, and if you are not willing to help without stopping to ask for more money, then you have the wrong idea about what policing is all about.

Here is another trait that will really make you stop and think, not to mention re-assess how you want to be conducting yourself when you take the B-PAD test and the WCT test. Do you stop to truly think and analyze the facts that are presented to you? Or do you go off half-cocked and blurt out an answer before all the facts are in?

Do you listen carefully to everything that is said to you? Think about those B-PAD videos! Do you take a good look at the overall picture before making a decision? Or, do you just jump and quickly choose to remedy a situation based on a couple of obvious facts without probing further?

All of these questions go to the heart of a good officer that pays attention to everything they see and hear and experience. It is those very experiences and all the information you receive and analyze that will help you resolve some of the most difficult situations you may face. If you don’t pay attention to everything you see and hear and experience, then you run the risk of missing something vital.

Your examiners and higher ups are going to be looking for whether or not you show a willingness to accept penalties/punishment and fix your errors or whether you try and shift the blame for your actions onto other people. In other words, do you take responsibility for life’s problems and how they impact on people or do you point the finger of blame at your friends, your family or that old standby anonymous “they?”

Think really hard about this one because most people, no matter how well adjusted they think they are, will do this once in awhile. If this is a habit with you, then it’s time for some major introspection into your personality.

Do you accept criticism properly? Or do you fly off the handle and get deeply and personally offended? Do you take every word of criticism, whether it’s constructive or not and just lose it? Do you respond honestly but politely and respectfully to being criticized?

No one likes to be on the receiving end of criticism, but you have to realize that if you are in a police force and are a new recruit, you are going to be on the short end of the stick at some point in time. It’s just the law of averages that you will likely run afoul of a superior officer or someone else you work with and sharp words will be exchanged. How you take those words to heart says a lot about your spirit, gumption, level of respect and dedication to duty.

Answer the above questions honestly and in the privacy of your own heart and mind and see what kind of answers you get. The answers might make you re-think your attitude.

Do you go out of your way to assist people in need, and that includes not just your peers and other officers, but members of the general public? If you restrict yourself and only do what you absolutely need to do to get by, policing isn’t a good choice of career for you. Most officers will go above and beyond the call of duty, because that is a part of who they are and what they do. They just do what needs to be done. Holding back because you have other things to do, places to go or people to see just won’t cut it in this lifestyle.

If you’re going to be a cop, you need to be a total cop and not a half way committed one. So, do some thinking about this aspect of the job and ask yourself some more tough questions. Would you take the time and energy to help someone else, no matter whether or not you were on duty, about to go off duty or were doing something else at the time?

You’ve likely heard this expression and it applies in police work as well: “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” meaning pick your battles, fight for what is important or focus on what counts and leave the small stuff alone. All of us have no doubt found ourselves in situations where we can’t seem to see the forest for the trees. Talk about spinning your wheels trying to solve something that, if you stand back and take a good look at it, doesn’t matter in the overall scheme of things.

You have to be able to ignore problems that don’t count or ignore obstacles by going around them. Every day you are a cop on the job, is a day that has the potential to present you with numerous frustrations. Are you able to handle the little things that build up and hold your temper? Are you able to see the forest clearly and focus on it and not the trees? Or do you tend to over-react to small things and blow up?

Another set of tough questions right? Answering them will give you a good idea of who you are, and will even better prepare you for the B-PAD test. So, give it a whirl and see what you get for answers. Nobody knows you better than you do.

In this post we will be looking at two more traits – confidentiality and leadership. Now you might be thinking “confidentiality?” Of course I would keep my mouth shut about work. However, if this weren’t an issue, then it wouldn’t be something that is required on the job, right?

Your examiners want to know if you realize the ramifications of confidentiality and how it’s used in policing. More particularly, they want to know if you are trustworthy enough to NOT give out confidential facts to people who don’t have the right or the need to know about a certain case. The worst thing that could happen is if you talk about a case with people outside the department. The other side of that coin is: do you have the smarts to relay confidential items to the proper people when the time is right?

You may be thinking that you wouldn’t tell anyone things that aren’t any of their business, but you’d be surprised how many recruits find themselves in awkward situations where their friends, spouse, family etc. keep asking them details about a case. In many instances, even a good cop will let something slip.

Another trait that you need to have is leadership, and while this may sound like a no brainer, leadership is more than you may think. Leadership is not always something YOU choose, but it may choose you. Cops are naturally looked upon as leaders because of their role in the community as problem solvers.

Your examiners will want to know if you are willing to take on that role and extra responsibility or do you limit yourself in where you work because you don’t want the responsibility? Think about this now, because at some point in the future you may find yourself in a situation where you have to choose to lead, follow or get the heck out of the way.

One of those traits would be trustworthiness. This would mean whether or not you are dependable to carry out a task that is assigned to you. In other words, do you just talk the talk or can you also walk the walk? Police recruiters will look for whether or not you have a tendency to make up stories to cover your errors or shortcomings. And, they will want to know if you will be where you are told to be and do what your commanding officer tells you to do even if the job is a really difficult one.

This is a bit of a no brainer, but another trait they want is honesty. Why? Well your word will potentially put people in jail, and your word is usually taken at face value because you are a cop. That is pretty heady stuff. Very powerful, and has the potential to be easily abused. It is crucial that you present the truth as it is, even at the cost of making yourself look like an idiot, instead of skewing the truth to make things look better for yourself.

The entire concept of honesty has so many layers that it would be difficult to completely cover in a blog entry, but ask yourself this question. Will you stand up for what is right even if it means losing the friendship and respect of other officers and your peers? This is one of the toughest questions and situations any new recruit will ever face over the course of their career. Spend time thinking about that now, because it may happen to you later.