Police Recruiting 101: Preparing Applicants for Process Testing!

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Tired of losing police applicants due to polygraph, psychological, or medical exam failures?  I’ve got an easy solution that will help get more people through your hiring process...keep reading! 👀

Hey everyone, it’s Tom Sye your Police Marketing FTO and this week, let’s talk about how to get more of your applicants through the dreaded big three of police testing...the polygraph, psych, and medical examination. 🙌 

There’s been a lot of talk in the news lately about losing applicants in particular to psych exams and you even have the Pittsburgh Police shopping around for results and sending people for re-tests, but this really got me thinking about these three main areas because they are really where most people get knocked out after passing their initial testing. 🥊

I remember early on in my recruiting and backgrounds career losing a lot of people to these tests as well...it’s super frustrating!  You put all of this time and effort into a candidate through initial testing, a background interview, a ride along, maybe even a command staff interview before getting to one of these and everything looks great...then, 30 minutes later, they’re gone. 😵

You get to your next batch of applicants, and it happens again, again on the next batch, and again still on the next batch after that.  I, just like you, grew tired of watching this happen over and over again and came up with a really simple solution...💡

👉 Prepare your applicants for testing.

Now, I know we all explain to our applicants that they’re going to have to take tests and maybe even touch on the greatest hits of ‘here’s what’s going to happen in there’s’, but are you really taking the time to prepare them for the tests?  If you’re having a bunch of failures the answer is likely not...and it may have never even occurred to you to do so. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♀️ 

Often times in police recruiting we get so caught up in the numbers, our deadlines, and trying to find the perfect applicants that we forget one major thing about our candidates...they’re human beings. 🤯

That means...they get nervous, they’re scared, they have no idea what to expect, or they’re putting themselves under a lot of pressure in just trying to get the job itself.  When you leave them to their own devices, especially when they are young and inexperienced, you’re setting them up for failure and that’s exactly what happens. 😩

But, have no fear...I’m breaking down how to prepare your applicants for the big three of police testing. 👇

1. The Polygraph

This is the mother of all testing failures and gets a lot of people eliminated from the process.  You can argue all day long why the polygraph is good or bad as a means to truth detection but let’s not get distracted by any of that because that’s not what we’re talking about here.  For the purposes of this newsletter, I just want you to remember one thing about the poly...sometimes people who are telling the truth fail and sometimes people who are lying pass.  Stop viewing it as a be all/end all, they’ll pass if they’re telling the truth, and prepare your applicants for the test. 👍 

How do you do that? 🤔

Explain to them everything that is going to happen...from showing up, to the pre-test, to the test itself.  Want a good example?  Here’s exactly what I tell my every one of my applicants prior to them taking a polygraph...🗣️

First, I ask them if they’ve ever taken a polygraph.  If they say ‘no’ I say, ‘ok, so I’m sure you’ve seen it on tv or in movies...it’s exactly like that’ and then go right into the following spiel.  If they say, ‘yes’, I say, ‘ok, perfect...to refresh your memory’ and then I go right into the following spiel.  

'It’s this giant box with a bunch of needles moving around, you’re going to be nervous as all get up...it’s completely normal.  What happens is you show up over there, with your polygraph packet and your driver’s license, you walk in, give them your packet, they check your license and make sure you’re you and then they’ll take you back to another room for the test.  It’s very important that you have your packet with you, and it’s completed otherwise she will not test you that day, so it’s very important that you have it with you and it’s all filled out. 

Then she’ll sit you down and she’s gonna go over every single question she’s going to ask of you.  So, there’s no surprises, no sucker punches, nothing out of left field...you’ll know every single question that she’s going to ask you ahead of time. 

Now, most of the questions are going to be from the background packet that you filled out, but there are a couple of questions like is your name Tom and is today Wednesday, and then she’ll have you lie on a couple of questions like is this wall black and you’ll say yes, but again most of the questions are from the packet that you filled out. 

So really, there’s no need to be nervous about it, it’s just a test about things you may or may not have done in your life, but again, with that being said, you’re going to be nervous as all get up, I’ve been a police officer almost twenty years, I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong, if I were to go take a polygraph right now I’d be nervous, that’s just the nature of the test, expect that going in'. 

When you finish explaining all of that...and take notice how many times I normalized being nervous in that spiel, you then move on to telling them about your polygrapher.  If you have someone who is super sweet and nice, tell them about it.  If you have someone who is very stern and serious, tell them about it.  If you have someone who is a bit quirky, tell them about it!

Our polygrapher is very sweet and super nice in person, but when she does polygraphs, she’s super serious so here’s what I tell them about her...

‘Ok...one more thing about the polygrapher...she is a very nice, super sweet lady, but for whatever reason, when she’s doing polygraphs, she’s super serious...so don’t expect a lot of high fives or warm and fuzzies, but I promise you, she doesn’t hate you, she’s not trying to fail you...she’s just very serious when she does these...but like I said, she’s actually very nice in person when she’s not doing these so don’t let that throw you off...expect it’. 

I can’t tell you how many times I’d get an email or a phone call telling me it went exactly as I said it would after testing and soon after, the passing results would come in.  If you want the same, explain the polygraph in this manner. ✔️

2.  Psych test

Much in the same vein as the polygraph, most of the applicants you encounter will never have taken one and don’t really understand what is ahead of them.  So, guess what we’re going to do?  That’s right...we’re going to explain this to them as well! 😀

To give you a real-world example, here’s exactly what I tell my applicants before every psych test and is based on a two-portion format...meaning applicants participate in a written psych test and a psych interview. 🗣️ 

Again, I’ll ask them if they’ve ever taken a psych before and if they say ‘yes’, I say, 'ok, perfect...to refresh your memory’ and then move on to the following spiel.  If they say ‘no’, I say, ‘ok, no worries, here’s what’s gonna happen’ and then go into the following spiel. 

‘Ok, so our psych is broken down into two phases.  The first, is a written examination which will be done here in my office, and it’s one of those tests that’s like fifteen hundred questions, but it’s really like 47 questions asked a million different ways, so if you’re not crazy coming in, you certainly will be by the time you leave here, but it’s all done on the computer, it’s multiple choice and takes about three hours to complete.

The interview portion is where you sit down with the department psychologist, he goes over all of your answers, gives you a couple of scenarios, it takes like 20 minutes or so...you’ll want to be dressed really nice that day, like super sharp because they do take note of that, so make sure you dress up and the other thing to remember is that it’s the department psychologist...not your psychologist, so you don’t need to get into what your brothers best friends, sister’s cousin did or anything like that.  Just answer the questions they ask you’.   

Explaining the psych in this manner really keeps your applicants on task, adds some humor to loosen it up a bit, and will stop them from rambling on and talking nonsense simply because they’re nervous for the test.  Don’t worry about someone hiding who they really are by doing this...the written test is designed to catch people doing exactly that and is really effective at weeding them out.  🤖

3.  The Medical

This one, at least for me, is the one that knocks out the least amount of people from my process, and when it happens it’s usually for a bona fide medical reason, so when I explain this test, I explain it that way.  Here’s exactly what I say...🗣️

‘The medical examination is like your garden variety physical or checkup you’d go to the doctor for, they just make sure everything is working the way it is supposed to be working and they throw you up on a treadmill and have you run with a mask on like you’re in a Gatorade commercial, but again, just making sure everything is working the way it’s supposed to be working like a normal physical or checkup...it’s done at one of our local hospitals and usually takes you about an hour depending on how busy they are that day’. 

You don’t have to get too fancy when explaining this, but it is super helpful to tell them what they’ll be doing, and I always try to mention things twice as that helps with memory retention.  This is especially true when it comes to your civilian positions...a lot of times they’re just showing up thinking they’re peeing in a cup when you tell them they have a medical, so if you want less headaches later, explain everything they’ll be doing right up front. 😎

Obviously, there’s not much you can do to prevent someone from failing this, they’re either physically fit enough for the job or they’re not but it’s always great to let people know what to expect. 🌠 

Well, that’s how you do it.  So simple, so easy, so many times, overlooked.  I hope you got a lot out of this one and start implementing these explanations in your spiel’s.  You’ll start seeing a lot more passing results, I promise you that.  🚀

Now...need some help getting people in the door so you can get them to poly, psych and medical? 🙋‍♂️🙋‍♀️

New police recruiting course available!

My Road to Better Recruiting course has got you covered! Production is almost wrapped up and it's getting closer and closer to launch!  You can learn more about what’s included and why the information provided is gonna be like drinking from a fire hose by visiting: forcopstraining.com/rtbr.

Have a friend at another agency needs to see more applicants passing these three critical hiring process steps?  Give this newsletter a like or share it with them so they can learn too.  Remember, we're all in this together and the future of our profession is at stake.  🤝

Have more questions about police recruiting, marketing, or anything else you're struggling with? Don't hesitate to reach out...I’m always here to help. ⛑

Until next week my Police Marketing Squad, happy recruiting! 😃

Tom

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👋 I’m Tom Sye, your Police Marketing FTO. I founded ‘For Cops’ Training to teach Police Departments how to attract more qualified candidates through the same tried and tested methods I’ve used for the past ten years at my own department to keep up with turnover and stay ahead of vacancies.

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