Police Officer Preparation & Law Enforcement Resource - Archive

Hello everyone,

First thank you to everyone who contributes to this forum you guys/gals have already given me a lot to think about. I've been looking for a job as a LEO officer in Washington state and so far its been frustratingly slow. I'm hoping to get some feedback on what I can do to improve my chances of getting hired or if there is something that is precluding me from getting hired. Below I did a list of positive (basically what I put on my resume and tell them in the interview) and negatives (things that come up with the background check)

Positives
I speak Spanish well (not perfectly but on an advance level)
I have a Bachelors in Finance and next month I will finish my Master in Business Admin. Both from good local Universities and 3.95 gpa for my Masters.
No criminal history of any kind
No drug use of any kind
No martial/girlfriend trouble
Honorable discharge from Army, where I served as a combat medic
Perfect credit except for one event (below in the negative column)

Negatives
No police experience
I don't have a degree in Criminal Justice
Two speeding tickets in the last six years (5-10mph over)
One accident, 4 years ago (minor fender bender no police report, just insurance)
I'm 30 years old (not sure if that is negative but I think I'm a bit older than most applicants)
And perhaps my biggest negative..... 7 years when I left active duty military I switched banks and forget to update my car payments, payments went over 90 days late and they repo my truck. It was just a stressful time of my life (new job, new location, new bank) and it slipped my mind (I know this sounds stupid.... I was being a bit stupid). I sent them a check immediately for $2000 to be good with my payments. Got the vehicle back that same week. Paid off the entire loan about 6 months later.

So my questions is do I have too many negatives? I have one year left of the G.I Bill should I try to get a Criminal Justice degree with that time? Or should I just give up because I'm too old or too many speeding tickets or whatever?

Thanks for any help you can give. And thank you to all the Law Enforcement Officers on this forum for serving our community and Nation :)

Robert

Sounds okay to me. The degree in CJ is about as good as one in basket weaving when it comes to applying for police work. Colleges have good salesmen.

The repo is blip, but if you paid it off immediately, my old department would probably overlook it. Bear in mind, some departments look at each thing when they go to hire and if there is someone w/o something like that and all other things are equal, they may get hired. Others, like mine take backgrounds as pass/fail. The only grading is on the written and oral exam. If you score well enough on those, you'll be hired. Veterans points will definitely help there.

Good luck.

Nothing major, 30 is definitely not too old.

Good luck also.

Hello everyone,

First thank you to everyone who contributes to this forum you guys/gals have already given me a lot to think about. I've been looking for a job as a LEO officer in Washington state and so far its been frustratingly slow. I'm hoping to get some feedback on what I can do to improve my chances of getting hired or if there is something that is precluding me from getting hired. Below I did a list of positive (basically what I put on my resume and tell them in the interview) and negatives (things that come up with the background check)

Positives
I speak Spanish well (not perfectly but on an advance level)great
I have a Bachelors in Finance and next month I will finish my Master in Business Admin. Both from good local Universities and 3.95 gpa for my Masters.great
No criminal history of any kindgreat
No drug use of any kindgreat
No martial/girlfriend trouble great
Honorable discharge from Army, where I served as a combat medicgreat
Perfect credit except for one event (below in the negative column) small speed bump

Negatives
No police experience
I don't have a degree in Criminal JusticeNot a problem
Two speeding tickets in the last six years (5-10mph over)small blemish
One accident, 4 years ago (minor fender bender no police report, just insurance)no effect
I'm 30 years old (not sure if that is negative but I think I'm a bit older than most applicants)no problem
And perhaps my biggest negative..... 7 years when I left active duty military I switched banks and forget to update my car payments, payments went over 90 days late and they repo my truck. It was just a stressful time of my life (new job, new location, new bank) and it slipped my mind (I know this sounds stupid.... I was being a bit stupid). I sent them a check immediately for $2000 to be good with my payments. Got the vehicle back that same week. Paid off the entire loan about 6 months later.OK , this is worth mentioning but it is NOT a big deal.

So my questions is do I have too many negatives? I have one year left of the G.I Bill should I try to get a Criminal Justice degree with that time? Or should I just give up because I'm too old or too many speeding tickets or whatever?

Thanks for any help you can give. And thank you to all the Law Enforcement Officers on this forum for serving our community and Nation :)

Robert

Your positives VASTLY outweigh your negatives. We all got traffic tickets before getting hired , most of us were in some kind of a crash , probably half of us or better do not have a CJ degree or a degree at all. Your age is FINE. The difference between 21 and 30 is huge in the area of maturity and life experience.

You are MUCH better than the average candidate and need to continue to apply and test whenever and wherever you can.

Sound like a great candidate.

Sound like a great candidate.

With all your LE experience you can speak with some authority asto what makes a great candidate?
:rolleyes5:

I'd say, as already mentioned, he's decent and should not dwell on the blemishes too much. I would not say great, though. In a very competitive field, the great candidates won't have the blemishes.

Your age is not a negative, in my opinion. You have 9 years of life experience over a 21 year old candidate. A 21 year old who is fresh out of college doesn't have much life experience although some have to grow up at the age of 16. Most 21 year old's are just getting into providing for themselves. A 30 year old can still give at least 20 years even more before they chose to retire.

I'm always a little suspicious of the candidates who appear perfect on paper.

Does the repo even show up on your credit report? So many people have had their houses repossessed, depts would have to fire half their staffs. I'm not a LEO so I don't know if it matters, but I'd bet at least one officer that reviews your app with the 7 year old truck repo lost their house in the last 5 years. It may weigh on their conscience a bit to be rejecting applicants for that. I know of laterals that have transferred with a house repossession though not a car. Not sure if depts look at houses different than cars. Others can weigh in how competitive you are.

As for switch, his dept is super competitive. No one meets the requirements so they aren't hiring anyone. And their dept is so tough they also send out people ten years older than you (2 in dog years) to kick down doors. Lol.

Thanks you retdetsgt, pac201, mcsap, NYYNYG, Switchback, and TEXASCOP, for taking some time and giving me some good input. The competition is really fierce out there and I think a lot these departments are only hiring one or two officers so anything negative is knocking me out of consideration.

Since I can't change the past, I'm looking forward to see what I can do to increase my chances of getting hired. I have one year left of the G.I Bill and I want to maximize this to get me a job as a LEO. I'm considering the following options.

Learning a third language (study abroad, I enjoy learning languages, any suggestions for a useful language besides Spanish?).

Studying in Spain to become fluent in Spanish. As I said before I speak it well but not fluently.

Getting a Master in Criminal Justice (I've applied to John Jay College in New York but after reading this forum and your comments I'm leaning away from this option).

Working on a PhD (I'm applying to a PhD program in Leadership at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington)

Or none of the above. Stay where I am and keep applying.....

I'm also retaking the public safety test in April. Last time I had a cold and didn't do as well as I would have liked, getting an 80.8% in the written exam.... Again thanks for all your comments and service.

Yes it does show up on my credit report. It actually happened 6 years and 6 months ago and will be removed from my credit history after 7 years. Though police departments always ask if you ever had anything repo and I always answer honestly. I'm generally really good with money. I have zero debt right now (no credit card, auto loan, or student loan), I have plenty of cash in the bank, and I have a perfect credit report (and I mean perfect not a single late payment to anything) since that incident. My credit score is 710..... :/

A good degree to get if you have any designs on upward mobility is public administration. I took a few graduate courses in that program and found they were well tailored and were actually useful in government management.

To get your credit rating up, I would suggest getting a VISA or something and pay it off every month. Not using credit can be a hindrance too. I put just about everything I buy on one credit card and pay it off monthly. It's a cash back type that pays me 25-75 bucks a month to use their money. The key, of course is to not put more on it than you can pay off.