Question for LEO that are BI's

[Nick22]

I have my BI appointment with LASD coming up in a little over a week, and LASD has you write an Autobiography for them, 5 page minimum. My question is this, if your agency does this as well, what is the average length of an applicants. I am supposed to hand write it, so I typed it out first and cleaned it up, and I feel like I had typed the basics plus a little more, but I definitely did not type every single memory I had, because I am lucky enough in life to be able to remember quiet a bit of info from even early on in my life, down to people I may have seen across a restaurant or some random place for no reason at all. But back on point, after writing it out, It went from 7 1/2 pages typed, to 25 pages written....I know ridiculous, Is this going to piss my B.I. off, or do they get a decent amount of long Autobiography's? Thanks for any info ahead of time.

[Nick22]

Any LEO in general have an opinion on this?!

[friedokra]

I don't recall having to do one of these, but my buddy is in the application process for a BI position at LASD. I asked him, and he said his was 5 pages. It's an exercise for report writing, so just write it like a report, not a novel. Get to the point without extraneous stuff that doesn't contribute much to the autobiography. If it's too long, people will get tired of reading it.

[oddjob]

Its a report writing exercise. They look over grammar, content & etc. I've seen documents friend's of mine have written and some of it was pretty poor. Bad enough where it was funny to read. When I've done backgrounds on lateral entry candidates I used to review police reports they wrote.

They will also use it to match it up with the Personal History Statement, credit report, Lexus-Nexus checks & etc to find any discrepancies.

Just a piece of advice......Have a friend with English skills review your work.

[9mmepiphany]

I didn't have to write one, but a general guideline would be...

Remember that if they ask for it, someone has to read them...While 5 pages is the listed minimum, anything over 5 pages should be really important.

It is a story that should be focused on the subject they are asking for...don't go off on tangents, it shows an inability to focus or stay on task

[retired]

Make it 5 pages and please ensure that it is grammatically correct. Also check the spelling and punctuation for mistakes.

My last assignment with LASD was as a sgt. at Men's Central Jail. I did my best to impress upon the fairly new deputies the importance of the above. I explained to them if they could not write a good report when they they were in patrol, they would fail to make it off of training. I did this not to scare them, but to make them realize how important it was that they could do so, since it was their career at risk if they could not.

[KrisDSA]

Bumping from the dead. Having the same problem as the OP. Also was told by another LEO that it should be more then 5 pages and to put in a lot of really personal info. Did anyone else put a lot of personal info in their bio

[micro911]

Make sure you write legibly.

[vgourdik]

We ask for 3 well written pages max....we penalize if someone exceeds. I look for how well you can express yourself in an succinct manner. Sell yourself and please write legibly and no tolerance for spelling errors.

[ak_in_ca]

Its a report writing exercise. They look over grammar, content & etc. I've seen documents friend's of mine have written and some of it was pretty poor. Bad enough where it was funny to read. When I've done backgrounds on lateral entry candidates I used to review police reports they wrote.

They will also use it to match it up with the Personal History Statement, credit report, Lexus-Nexus checks & etc to find any discrepancies.

Just a piece of advice......Have a friend with English skills review your work.

This!!!!!

[CH483]

Damn, 5 pages of handwritten autobiography? That sucks!

[sloppy joe]

Chop it down to five pages. Keep it simple

[jdubs71]

If they're asking for 5 pages it probably wouldn't hurt you if you went 5- 6 pages. As many stated above its a report writting exercise to see how you write. Report writing is very important and many people will fail fto program's because of they're inability to write clear, concise, grammatically correct reports. Also, they want to see how well you can follow instructions.