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A quick question for any LEOs that may be familiar with the hiring process....I recently applied for and was not hired as a Reserve Officer. I completed every step other than the psych and medical......apparently they must have found something in my background, but I have no idea what it could be. Nobody from the city's HR dept. or from the PD itself has returned my calls so far. My question is: Are they required to tell me why I was not hired, or if not, how can I go about finding out what the issue is/was? Thanks!
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Were you not assigned a B.I.? When I went through the process I had a B.I. and two separate contact numbers to reach him. -
Most agencies have a non-disclosure policy.
LAPD will tell you what they found, but that's the only place I can think of who will give you the dirt they found.Comment
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Even if they have a non disclosure policy, are there any labor laws or anything that could be used to get them to disclose what they found? I need to know what the issue is or was, so that I know if I have any future in Law Enforcement. I've never had any isses come up in any other L.E. backgrounds that I've had done.Comment
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What other LE backgrounds have you done?Comment
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I've done several......I was hired a Sheriff's Deputy, I left that job about 12 years ago because I didn't make it through FTO. After leaving there I tested at a couple of agencies, and passed their backgrounds, however I failed the psychs (the psychs were all conducted by the same person) due to maturity issues. I know this because I went back to the same psych for a CSO job I was testing for, he told me then about the maturity issues, but that he thought I was a different person now, so I don't believe I failed that psych. This all kind of a long story made short, I'd be typing forever if I told my entire LE history!Comment
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Any of the reasons you listed from your past could be in themselves the reason you washed out this time. As I am sure you know in the world of applying and making it through an academy the nail that sicks out gets hammered. Sucks though.Comment
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How much does debt figure in to it? We have a lot of debt, however we pay all of our bills on time and have an excellent credit rating.Comment
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Not sure what you mean by ratio,but we rent, so no mortgage, have two credit cards, one is pretty much maxed, the other has about $8,000 in available credit, and we don't use that one at all unless its an emergency. We have two car loans, one we got in 05, the other in late 07, and thats it for our debt.Comment
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Debt to income is a big factor for obvious reasons.Comment
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I would say not making it through FTO training is the main reason. It cost a lot of money to get to the point of FTO training. They just don't want to take a chance since you failed to make it through another departments training.
In my department it cost the same to train a Reserve Officer as a Full time Officer. Reserves also had there own chain of command. We were very careful about who we hired. We only took the top people. Anything like that in the background we would not have considered. We looked for the people who we knew would make it through the whole process (Level one full basic POST). We were also certified to do our own backgrounds. We did not like to take chances. I actually saw people that we turn down get hire as a full time Officer with our Department.
The reason for this was it took us a lot of years to get the full respect of our full time counter parts. Some Reserves in the 70s and early 80s (do to lack of training and lack of good background checks) gave us a not so good rep in my department. We worked our asses off and by 1994 we were treated and respected as equals. The full time Officers even campaigned successfully to remove Reserve Officer from our badges and put Police Officer in place of it. We worked one man cars on a beat, Gangs, FTOs you name it we did it.
I tell you this because you might be thinking that it should have been easier to be a Reserve Officer. It's not. It is actually more difficult in some ways.
Put your apps in every Department you can. Try to figure out what you can say and do. Try to give the department your going for a better picture of what kind of person you are today. It is not going to be easy but do not give up. And remember if you want to be a Reserve most Reserve organizations have allot to say about who they hire.
Good Luck and I hope I gave you some insight to help you get picked up.Comment
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I would guess the failing out of FTO is the culprit.Comment
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