Interview Questions

[TamiD]

Hi Everyone,

I work for the Ventura County Sheriffs Department in Southern California.

We had a staff meeting today and after several employees questioned the caliber of applicants that pass the interview I have been 'volunteered' by my Comm Manager to try to find additional questions that might be able to be used during our interview process. We have a list of 20 something questions that have been largely unchanged since I was hired 5 years ago. We are also having a problem of local agencies 'sharing' questions and now as applicants interview with our local agencies they are responding to the same general questions and have already been able to judge by the prior responses from other panels what is a good answer. We also have people that have interviewed with our agency more than once and got kicked in backgrounds. But when they come back to interview they already know the questions we are going to ask.

Ideally I'd like to make 3 or 4 lists of questions that we could rotate during different interview panels to keep mixing things up. The questions would have to be submitted and approved by our personnel department before use but at this point I'm just collecting information.

I REALLY don't want any of the questions to be listed on this site since anyone including applicants have full access to read it so I'd prefer specific information be exchanged via email.

However you would like to confirm my employment before turning over any information is fine. Our website is VCSD.org and my work email is tami.dance@ventura.org

I don't know if our personnel number is listed on line but if you'd like it I can email you that along with my employee ID number or I can provide our ORI/phonetics via email. Just let me know.

Thanks for your help.

Tami

[StationM]

Our agency does backgrounds first, then an interview.

Does your agency do testing first? We use Criti-Call to test for recall,
map-reading, typing speed, and multi-tasking. I'm starting to think we need to include spelling.

Maybe some good scenario questions?

[MDEMT280]

I've never been in a position where I'm giving an interview or making a hiring decision. However, I'm not a big fan of scenario-based questions for untrained applicants. I think it's unfair to ask an applicant to respond to a situation that would require knowledge of policies and procedures when they don't have any experience in the agency.

Common sense questions and questions which can be answered generally are okay in my book, but some of them are almost impossible to answer correctly, like, "for how long can you hold this call before dispatching it?" That's purely a question of departmental procedure. It's like asking an untrained applicant for a paramedic recruit position what the dosage is for epinephrine in a patient in V-fib, or asking a LEO applicant what class of misdemeanor a certain crime would be.

[StationM]

Well, there are scenarios, and then there are scenarios!

One of the elements of the Criticall test was to assign a responding agency based on a brief overview of who does what. Is this gonna be FD, EMT, LE, or utilities?

What I'm seeing, is a basic inability to see the big picture, or a possible outcome to certain situations. Considering the liability we have, we need people that can use both critical listening and thinking skills.

I also see people that don't really seem ready to deal with the bad things that are going to happen. If you can't listen to a tape of a woman being murdered, will you bail or freeze when you take a call from a woman being murdered?

[MDEMT280]

All valid points. I think the Criticall test (which I did take) doesn't take too much brain power. Police stop crimes, FD puts out fires, etc.

Both agencies I tested for required a "sit-along" in the communications center as part of the hiring process. It is by no means a weed-out, and you may not get that super-nasty bad call during those four hours, but it does provide some exposure. It may be worth doing the "sit-along" BEFORE the interview, as you could then ask more job-related questions based on the applicant's new knowledge of the position.

Perhaps also playing some tapes (like you mentioned) and then asking questions based off of those would allow the interview panel to both give the applicant a better idea of the job, and gauge their responses to extraordinary circumstances.

As for the questions themselves... I can't think of any great ones off the top of my head, but please focus on job-specific stuff. It's annoying to go to interviews for a technical position, and to be asked things like, "what are your views on diversity?" without even touching on qualifications. :D

[StationM]

Or...."What would you do if you saw Sally take Bob's lunch out of the break room fridge?"


I kid you not!

[craigo0087]

Yeah Criticall is a good program. I was recently tested on it and i passed it. You do have to multi-task on it but wasnt anything i cant handle:rolleyes:

[hdblue]

Yeah Criticall is a good program. I was recently tested on it and i passed it. You do have to multi-task on it but wasnt anything i cant handle:rolleyes:

Hi,

I agreed with you. Any way, your points of view make me thinking about some thing for my project.

Pls try to keep posting. Tks and best regards

[Kimble]

Hi,

I agreed with you. Any way, your points of view make me thinking about some thing for my project.

Pls try to keep posting. Tks and best regards

Hdblue,

Since this is your first post and you just joined the site today I'll let this slide as a rookie mistake, but please take a moment to review the site rules, and do not resurrect threads that have been dead for several years. Thanks.