New career with the Police

[eastshells]

Hi guys.

I have been thinking about a career change for a while now and really would like to work for the police. I'm just in awe and fascinated by them and think they do a very admirable job.
I don't want to be a Bobby on the beat as I'm not confident enough for that!
But.. I have thought about being a 999 handler as it has very good progression prospects.
I've looked into it and the application process is very in depth (as it should be, not complaining) such as not being allowed to apply if you have any debt..?
I find this slightly mad, as don't most people have some kind of debt? The people who would be applying for those roles certainly aren't going to be rolling in it so would most likely have some debts behind them. I thought they'd be glad to get applications given the lack of staff at the moment?
It's putting me off. Is it really that hard to get into? I'd love some advice from anyone in that field.

@eastshells Police Scotland

This is very interesting, thank you for commenting. Do you have any words of wisdom? I don't mean that in a patronising way.
I love hearing about others experiences.

It's very common for people to start off in either the control room or in custody (custody has a lot of civilian staff) or as a Special Constable, before moving on. That could either be to other civilian roles with the Force- and there are many- or to becoming a PC.
Once you're 'in' you'll start to see the range of roles across the organisation and can get an idea of where you'd like to specialise.

And again, don't worry about 'debt', it's only if you're not making payments, or have a stupid amount that you're considered a potential risk.

I think in every organisation there are people who are ambitious and people who are content to stay within the role or department that they are in - and that’s fine. Once you’re in an organisation as big as the Met you discover all these functions that you won’t even know exist. I’m in a specialist department (that doesn’t even exist outside the Met) performing a very niche job that can also be done by police staff ( although Im an officer) with tons of flexibility around hours / WFH but you’re never going to see it advertised as an external job. My experience of the Met has been good for lateral transfers so I’d say applying for a control room position would not be a barrier to subsequent moves if you were keen to try other things. It won’t be given to you though you would need to explore roles yourself. Good luck if you decide to go ahead.

The Met are crying out for people in their control centre. It's often understaffed. However the vetting procedure is thorough, as it should be. I know someone who failed the vetting very recently, but in her case it was the twat of a boyfriend she lives with, who has a dodgy background.

I was also a special constable for a couple of years in my spare time to get a feel for things. Not sure if an option for you?

A lot of roles are obviously very prescriptive as of course you have to follow laws and regulations - we often used the Line of Duty quote 'to the letter of the law' 😁 Being able to communicate and engage is also a good trait and the wanting to make a difference thing.

I'd also have a think about what laws you know - ie speeding, not good to nick stuff etc and also equate any experience you might have putting those to use, ie stopping a shoplifter, reporting an accident.

A big one is being calm under pressure and objective - I think I lasted so long as I can detach a fair bit and still follow procedure when someone is shouting at you or emotional.

My friend was a controller - she loved it but it was pretty intense and a lot of training. She started on the switchboard and then moved to the control room and did 10yrs there. Now she’s a SAHM.

Some great advice. I'm going to go for it!
Just one other question, which I know is silly but are most of the staff as miserable/grumpy as they seem on the tv?! 😆

Different forces are different. in mine call handling is intense, it’s completely non stop and they decide on what is a police matter and what isn’t and only send those that need officers to go to across to dispatch. They will crime anything that doesn’t need a quick police response. The call handlers work extremely hard and there is a constant stream of 999 and 101 calls waiting as well as digital. Dispatchers have a bit more down time, but when they are busy they are really busy, so they might have 3 immediate incidents and only 1 unit so have to decide what is the most immediate.

We don’t have a massive amount of progression within the department. The supervisor/manager roles don’t come up very often but once you are in you can apply for other roles across the force. Our force has a tenure period for call handling so you have to finish that first.

I wouldn’t say grumpy, it’s just very intense and they don’t have time to take ages on a call so are getting the information they need as quickly as possible and controlling the call to do that.

Definitely not grumpy in my constabulary! I work CID in Yorkshire and our control room are excellent. They do loads such as calling ambulances, ringing around hospitals looking for missing people, they check the police systems for us and collate the information so can give us the most up to date essential information we need. They are funny too in parts. We know them by name on the radio and they call us by first names mostly if we’ve been in a while.

@MagentaRocks sorry for the late tag. I've just come off of work. I understand the job being busy. I was joking and referring to all the police tv shows where they all look utterly miserable and depressed 😆

Well that sounds brilliant! I'd love to work in an environment like that. Sadly, Yorkshire is too far from me.. 😞
I went to school up there. Such nice folk!

From one to another!👋🏻

Love the job, I started as a call handler then progressed to dispatch which I’ve been doing for way over 20 years. Still enjoy the nuts and bolts of the job (although the whole service is fucked!)

@MagentaRocks I wish our call handlers were still allowed to decide what doesn’t need attendance, that falls to dispatch and we spend half our time getting rid of stuff that has nothing to do with police

Northern force here.
Get your foot in the door. As someone further up the thread said I also have an interesting niche job that was internal and is a mix of officers and civ staff.
I am a bank 999 call handler and its a hard role but you never know what your going to get. 1 call might be the theft of a wheelie bin (please ring the council 🤣) the next a murder. Long shifts but they go quick!
Policing is fu*ked! But the roles, people you work with, benefits, pension and snacks are brilliant.
There is alot of politics and reinvention of the wheel constantly but after 10 years im still here

Best of luck

I went for that with the met
got as far as the Hendon tests but failed because I couldn’t type fast enough
my debts didn’t make a difference
according to a mate who is a sergeant in the call centre you can pretty much write your own pay cheque as they are so desperate for handlers