If you are going to be appointed as a police officer, you are going to have to evidence sufficient skills during the 4 role play exercises. It is not possible to not perform in these exercises and still be appointed because there is insufficient marks elsewhere to meet the required overall pass mark (50-60% depending on force).

There is very little accurate advice on the market about the role-plays – so in this article we will dispell myths and seek to provide 100% accurate advice about this section of the assessment centre.

During the role plays you will perform the duty of a customer service officer working at a shopping centre. Your responsibility is to investigate complaints and deal with issues relating to policies and behaviour in the centre. You are expected to question individuals about what happened, said, done etc and then make decisions about which course of action will be taken. Some policies are included in the exercises so these will be available for you to explain. An example of such policy is the Equality Statement.

You will undertake 4 role play exercises, each lasting 10 mins. 5 mins preparation time, whereby you will read an exercise brief containing a memo/email from a senior manager, plus any additional information such as the policy on such matters. At the end of the 5 mins a buzzer will sound, there will now be a 90 second wait outside the entrance to the role-play room. At this stage you can read your notes and prepare to enter the room. A further buzzer will sound and you will then enter the room for a 5 min activity phase (you take your notes with you into the room). You will be greeted by a role actor whom always speaks on your entry.  An example would be: Hello, my name is… I hope you are going to do something about that security team?

Candidates are then expected to ask appropriate clarifying questions about the incident/concern that the role actor witnessed/have. During this time, in many cases the role-actor will be testing your resilience so will try to provoke you and test your ability to remain calm, focused and follow through with the right decision.

Remember during the activity phase you have access to your notes and you have an identical copy of the brief in the room with you. You do not have access to a pen or pencil so it is very important you listen and take a mental note of what is being said, so if necessary you can ask clarifying questions later in the 5 mins.

Role actors have set scripts, approx. 14 lines that they can deliver to you during the 5 mins. They will only respond when you ask specific questions and state specific things. If for example, in the brief it told you the incident took place last ‘Thursday at 09:30′, if you were to ask the role actor when this happened you will be met with silence. You have already been told this information so why the need to ask? Your aim is to establish new information about what happened, said, done etc. If it said in the brief it happened ‘last week’ then of course you need to ask when last week did this happen? Once all questions have been asked, you now need to decide an appropriate course of action and explain it to the role actor.

At the end of the 5 mins a further buzzer will sound and this will signal the end of the role play exercise. You will be required to hand your notes to the assessor on exit, this is to prevent you from sharing your notes with other candidates whom have yet to undertake the role play exercise you have just completed. You are not allowed to leave the room until the buzzer sounds, so if you complete the exercise in less than 5 mins you will simply stay seated and wait for the buzzer. You now have 90 seconds to vacate the room and take your seat at the next preparation stage. A candidate co-ordinator will be present on the corridor, ensuring you are undertaking the exercises in the correct order (each candidate completes the exercises in a different order).

A buzzer will sound at the end of the 90 seconds and you will now begin a further 5 min preparation phase for another role play exercise. You only have 90 seconds from when you end the activity phase of one role play exercise before you begin the preparation phase for the next. No time at all to reflect on your performance!

All four role play exercises will be completed in 45 mins. The remaining 4 hours + at assessment centre will be spent trying to accrue the remaining 47% of the marks available.

To help you understand this process we have devised a complimentary role-play exercise for you. To obtain this please visit: http://www.policeapplication.co.uk/sample_role_play/ – and complete the required fields. This service is not automated so it may be 48 hours before you receive the email with the document attached. By requesting the complimentary role play exercise you are agreeing to our privacy policy and we will contact you by email providing further advice and content of our training courses.

Author: David Vidgen, Recruitment Director – www.policeapplication.co.uk

You will also need a new example for Team Working and Race and Diversity as the interview is asking you to evidence different skills to those tested in the application. For example Q2 in the application form (Team Working) was a time when you were willing to share in less attractive tasks. The interview tests different team working behaviours, so a new example will be required. The same will apply for Race and Diversity.

It is possible that you could use your Resilience answer in your interview, but that will depend on exactly what you wrote.

If you want to be 100% prepared for the assessment centre then we advise you to attend one of our police assessment group courses or book a one to one session.

• Community and Customer Focus
• Resilience
• Team Working
• Race and Diversity

In addition to the above four competencies, you are also being assessed against Oral Communications. This is your ability to use plain and clear English, with structure to your answers. You will be penalised if you use Acronyms or Abbreviations such as BT, IBM, MPS etc, as these mean different things to different people.

You will be given 5 minutes to provide an answer to each question. A copy of each question will be provided on a laminated card, this is so you do not have to keep asking the interviewer to repeat the question. If your answer does not contain the necessary information, then the interviewer will ask you further probing questions i.e., what was the outcome?

At the end of each 5 minutes the interviewer will stop you, and you will move onto the next question. If you complete all questions in under 20 minutes, you will remain in the room until the process has been completed. The interviewer will advise you when you can leave.

Some common myths about the interview:

1. More than 1 person will interview me – Incorrect. Only 1 person carries out the interview. This same person is also responsible for assessing you.
2. I need to know about my chosen force – Incorrect. You will be required to ask 4 questions, each relating to your past experience. Police knowledge is not required nor is essential.
3. I will lose marks if the interviewer has to prompt me – Incorrect. If the interviewer is asking you further probing questions, this is to help you. It means you have yet to provide this information and they are using probing questions to try and elicit the information from you. Marks are not deducted for being prompted.
4. I must speak for 5 minutes – Incorrect. This is a tick-box process, so if you answer your question in 2 minutes and it contains all the necessary skills they are seeking, then there is no need to talk for the remainder of the time. The interviewer will advise you that you have time remaining and if there is anything else you would like to add.
5. I cannot use examples from the same place or work/education – Incorrect. Providing the examples you deliver meet the skills required, it does not matter whether they all relate to the same place of work/education etc.

I hope you found this useful.

David Vidgen
Course Tutor and Recruitment Director

• Overall (50%, 55% or 60% depending on force)
• Race and Diversity (50%, 55% or 60% depending on force)
• Oral Communications (50%, 55% or 60% depending on force)
• Written Communications (44%)

In addition to the above candidates must not score a grade D in Race and Diversity.

Overall in an assessment centre there are 123 marks available. If you achieved 50% overall this means you obtained 1/2 of the 123 marks available (approx 62 marks). If you scored 57% you obtained 70 marks.

For Race and Diversity there is a total of 21 marks available. If you scored 52% this equates to 11 out of the 21 marks. 57% equates to 12 marks.

In Oral Communications there is a total of 15 marks available. If you obtained 87% this means you scored 13 out of the 15 marks available.

For Written Communications there is just 9 marks available. If you scored 33%, this means you scored just 3 out of the 9 marks.

Even if you obtained 100% in Race and Diversity, Oral and Written Communications, this only accounts for 45 marks out of the 123. So although you may have met the required standard for these 3 competency areas, it is still possible you are rejected because your overall score did not meet the requirement. The remaining 78 marks are accounted for in Team Working, Resilience, Customer Focus, Problem Solving and Effective Communications.

So if you scored:

• 49% Overall
• 90% Race and Diversity
• 100% Oral Communications
• 100% Written Communications

This means you scored 60 marks out of 123 overall. 19 out of 21 marks for Race an Diversity, 15 marks out of 15 marks for Oral Communications and 9 marks out of 9 for Written Communications. Because you only achieved 60 marks overall (49%), this standard is not sufficient to join any force.

Thanks for checking out my blog, I hope this helps you understand your scroes. David Vidgen