Law Enforcement and Police Officer Resume Writing Tips
Whatever your job market, law enforcement is a career that appeals to a wide variety of character and personality types. Unfortunately, police departments and law enforcement agencies set a high standard of who they will and won't hire, and large majority of the population no matter how great their desire to be a cop will not qualify. But if you have kept your background clean and you know you have the right character and personality for the job, putting together your background packet is the first step along the process. Here are a few law enforcement and police officer resume writing tips to ensure you make the top of the selection list.
Be Honest About Your Experience and Accomplishments
Many of the resume writing guidelines and tutorials teach job hunters how to be creative with the language a potential employee may use. Bullet points like "oversaw the safety and skill enhancement of numerous youths in potentially hazardous situations" can mean anything from working at a charity organization to being a life guard at the local public swimming pool. "Provided enhanced service delivery to individuals and large groups for a major food distributor" can be used to mask the fact an individual’s only gainful employment was flipping burgers at the fast food restaurant around the corner.
The point is that whatever you embellish about your experience or accomplishments will eventually come out in the initial interview, oral board, or other areas of the hiring process. Honesty is a key characteristic essential to any hope of a career in law enforcement, so being less than honest in your resume will send an instant red flag to any hiring official looking over your background packet. It's better to be honest and get disqualified, because you can always gain more life experience and accomplishments and reapply at a later date with a clean application history. Once one agency finds you to be dishonest, this will follow you to anywhere else you will apply, not to mention if you reapply to the same police department after being previously disqualified for an integrity issue.
Understand the Requirements of the Potential Agency or Police Department
When completing your application packet, be sure to not over focus on minute details. Many departments do a quick review of a candidate's resume, and then immediately go to what is included on all of the application forms. Hiring officials use resumes as a starting point from which to gauge when things don’t add up in your overall application packet. This is another reason why honesty is so important when documenting your history in resume format.
The type of law enforcement agency or department at which a candidate applies will also be a large factor in the significance of a good resume in the first place. If you are applying for a Federal Agency, along with your resume, properly answering the Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSA's) is one of the most important factors of whether or not you advance in the hiring process. KSA's are one of the things Federal hiring agencies look at first, and not answering the KSA's completely or effectively could easily get your name removed from a job announcement consideration list, even if you are the most qualified candidate for the job.
Other General Guidelines
For general requirements, law enforcement or police officer resumes require information similar to that of a typical civilian job. One of the most important factors in getting hired on at a department is life experience. This is why one candidate who has completed significant volunteer work or military service may receive greater consideration than another candidate who has a college degree but has lived with family their entire life. Be honest about your life experience, but also ensure you are not omitting things that will demonstrate your maturity.
Here are a few standard bullets required for writing a good law enforcement or police resume:
- Objective in applying for this job position
- Contact details
- Educational qualifications
- Overall experience in job summary
- Your past work experiences
- Achievements and awards that