Hi everyone,I have an upcoming interview and assessment for a Contact Resolution Officer role with the police, handling 999 emergency calls.The assessment involves around eight practice calls to see how I record information and handle pressure. I’d really appreciate advice from anyone who has been through a similar assessment or works in police call handling.
>>35049312I've worked in dispatch taking calls for 8 years. What sort of advice did you want specifically? The most general advice I have is to gather info from the caller with persistence, don't sit there and let them monkey-panic over the phone. You need the location, what's happening, confirm who's calling (reference your ANI/ALI, confirm it's right), and whether there are weapons involved. The last one isn't always relevant, like if someone calls for medics because they're having a stroke.
>>35049369This.One of those calls is going to be someone in a medical emergency who’s panicking, crying etc. Try to avoid “everything will be ok ma’am” (because you don’t know that) and go with something like “I want to get you help as fast as possible, where are you? What happened?” Etc.I have heard stories of practice calls being “I’m going in-alive myself”. Keep that guy talking, ask open ended questions “why do you want to do that?” “How are you planning to do it? With a gun? Where are you going to do it?”You just found out if he had a gun and what his location is. Neat trick.
>>35049369Well I have been to this assesment before years ago and I think I nearly passed it. One of the calls threw me off it was a person claiming that she doesn't know where she is and doesn't know who the people around her are ect on further evaluation it was a woman phoning up basically telling me she's in a psych ward so i'm unsure how I would get to that point when taking notes what type of questions? what is the examiner looking for? >>35049398Yeah a few of them are like someones kid has gone missing or house has been broken into or youths are causing trouble outside someones shop. I feel like I do well enough because I have been in call centers mostly the Housing for 4 years now so the pressure isn't the problem it's more the questioning and what notes to take down.
>>35049398Why do you talk like a zoomer tranny?
>>35049422People not knowing where they are is a pain in the cock for sure, since it's debatably the most important info for you. Does the equipment include ANI/ALI (basically number and location tracing, think caller ID on steroids) for incoming calls? That can help you a lot if they don't know where they are and aren't moving around, even with mobile phones. It's not perfect ofc but it's better than nothing. Some systems will even give you GPS coordinates for an approximate location.Naturally you will get actual schizo calls where the person on the other end is just nuts, and their meat software is telling them to waste a responder's time. You can't determine that yourself as dispatch though, so you just have to get someone other there to make that call on scene.
>>35049438So because it's asesment I wont be logged into the Police computers it's essentially just microsoft word and i'm writing down all the info possible. It's supposed to test my ability gain information via communication. Like I will have someone sitting next to me listening to what I say and type and timing me and the other person on the phone is a roleplayer.
>>35049441In that case you'd usually have to try and figure out where they are based on what they say is around them, which becomes harder the larger your coverage area gets. Landmarks and buildings can simplify things, especially places that aren't common. When I dispatched at an airport, the control tower was a very common point of reference to use for people with problems outside the terminal but didn't know where they were. Any kind of signage is very helpful, since it can basically reveal where they are. Stop sign? It's an intersection, what are the roads? Bingo.In cases like that you kind of have to interrogate the caller for relevant info, type it in as they talk, and try to figure it out that way. It's a good exercise for an eval because it's fucking hard to do. If they pull that one out on you I'd just focus on getting as much info on what's around them as possible.
