Basically title, I’ve submitted my personal history package, passed the agility test, got my medical signed off and did really well in my interview.
After the interview I was talking with my recruiter and he gave me a quick run through of the rest of the process and that led to him telling me that they haven’t sent out the request for records forms I signed and that they don’t do the typical background stuff/reference checks until I’m in academy. Also I won’t go through the psych evaluation until after I’ve completed academy and passed the state exam.
So is this normal, or a red flag? This seems really counterintuitive to me. I would’ve thought that a department would want to be 100% sure you’re good to go before investing the thousands of dollars into paying a salary and the cost of training into a recruit. If someone has some red flags, bullshits their personal history or just gets nervous and fumbles psych that’s 10s of thousands of dollars and 6 months wasted.
Someone help me make this make sense please.
Comments
That doesn’t make sense to me, at least in my state. Why waste money on equipment, wages, academy entry cost, and time if it could mean you’d fail a background check.
I don’t know that it is normal but it does happen. In my current federal agency they don’t submit the background until after in the academy. There have many people who graduate and return and cannot begin field training or working in uniform until the background is completed, sometimes taking months. When I was at the county and state level they completed everything before a job offer. So it really just depends.
In NH, backgrounds are no cost or minimal cost to the municipality. We do them first. Your agency may have a cost component that they want the free/cheap/less costly stuff done first and gradually add the new hire cost components as you progress. Medical exams used to be very expensive for us and were done later in process.
Or HR has no fng clue and they do stuff their own way that makes no sense at all. This is the most likely answer. Our HR cannot comprehend how people work outside of 8-4 M-F and make asinine policies without any consideration for people that work outside of these hours.
Is this for CBPO? they do provisional acceptance also NYPD does that too
When I came on 30 year ago my agency did that. Until they had to fire a few people that has some serious issues in the background.
It’s really stupid, but some places do this to cut down on the number of investigations they have to do. Instead of having to do a check on everyone and then picking from there, they pick who they want and then hope that you can pass a screen. Cuts down on hundreds or thousands of records requests and interviews etc. Also makes them more competitive in the sense that they can get you in and working in 3 months instead of 7 or whatever so prospective applicants are more likely to go with them.
As a detective, I do background checks for new-hires. Our packets are done completely before any other step in the process. And our backgrounds are extensive. Then it’s interviews, physical test, drug test, psyche test, etc. (not necessarily in that order).