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voodoo_man
04-10-2016, 02:37 PM
Since we have that Sgt thread and I know many of us have done prep for oral boards, lets have a thread on tips, tricks, suggestions, opinions or just one liners to use in order to successfully prepare and get a good grade/score on the boards.

AMC
04-10-2016, 04:20 PM
This is going to be highly dependent on the specific department/oral board format. Some departments use an internal "interview" style oral board, while we use an oral "rolling field scenario" using exclusively outside evaluators/moderators. I think a key point is to know exactly what it's going to look like, and spend some time (preferably 6 months to a year if you can) prepping. Depending on your individual test, that might mean working with a consultant who coaches on public speaking (and who will film you to highlight issues), to seeking advice from trusted higher ups who have already been through the process.

This is also department dependant, but recognize that the testing/promotional process is likely not even remotely related to the actual job. This sucks, but is reality. When I tested for Sergeant, one of our Deputy Chiefs was leading an education/prep program for the candidates. His advice :"So, my 13 year old son and I are both huge baseball fanatics. Imagine the head coach of the Giants comes to us and says, 'We're gonna have a tryout between you two for an open spot on the team'. I think, 'Great, I love my kid but obviously I'm more qualified, and I've got this!'. Then the manager says, 'Hey, we don't have time to be watching you guys play in actual games or anything, so in 8 months we're gonna have you two play Ken Griffey Jr Ball on Playstation. The winner gets the spot on the team.' Now, clearly this has nothing to do with actual skill as a ballplayer, and now my kid has the advantage! But knowing that, horse on me if I don't spend the next 8 months playing Playstation to get ready!"

voodoo_man
04-10-2016, 04:36 PM
This is going to be highly dependent on the specific department/oral board format. Some departments use an internal "interview" style oral board, while we use an oral "rolling field scenario" using exclusively outside evaluators/moderators. I think a key point is to know exactly what it's going to look like, and spend some time (preferably 6 months to a year if you can) prepping. Depending on your individual test, that might mean working with a consultant who coaches on public speaking (and who will film you to highlight issues), to seeking advice from trusted higher ups who have already been through the process.

This is also department dependant, but recognize that the testing/promotional process is likely not even remotely related to the actual job. This sucks, but is reality. When I tested for Sergeant, one of our Deputy Chiefs was leading an education/prep program for the candidates. His advice :"So, my 13 year old son and I are both huge baseball fanatics. Imagine the head coach of the Giants comes to us and says, 'We're gonna have a tryout between you two for an open spot on the team'. I think, 'Great, I love my kid but obviously I'm more qualified, and I've got this!'. Then the manager says, 'Hey, we don't have time to be watching you guys play in actual games or anything, so in 8 months we're gonna have you two play Ken Griffey Jr Ball on Playstation. The winner gets the spot on the team.' Now, clearly this has nothing to do with actual skill as a ballplayer, and now my kid has the advantage! But knowing that, horse on me if I don't spend the next 8 months playing Playstation to get ready!"

I agree it is dependent on the PD and the style, we use the outside eval type as wel, getting two types of questions. The way we are supposed to answer varies widely and different people do things differently.

I'd like to see what types of transition phrases people use, what type of blowjob lines people come up with, consider a topic or scenario (morale, activity, big fire scenes to bomb situations to active shooters to Ferguson to train derailments) and post up how you would answer the question...

Might give people ideas in different PD's about how to approach things...?

Lon
04-10-2016, 05:46 PM
I've only done the oral board once. In our promotion process there's three parts - seniority points, written test and a series of "scenario" type oral evaluation "stations". They gave us a written scenario to study for 5-10 minutes, then we had to come in and interact/speak with the evaluators.

One "station" included 2 scenarios where the evaluators role played. One of those scenarios was a domestic/agg burglary call that they wanted you to review with a "prosecutor" (played by a real prosecutor). They were look My to see if you knew the elements that made the DV an agg burglary. The second scenario dealt with a press release and interview with the media. The press release was about an officer in trouble for a social media lost he made. In this scenario they were looking for how well you knew the discipline/IA procedures/process. They also tried to get you to give your personal opinion about what had happened to the officer discipline wise.

The next station dealt with 2 scenarios where they just quizzed you on what you would do. One was a scenario where you happened to find out your officers were performing an illegal strip search of a suspect in a fire department shower room and it was a male suspect and there were female firefighters watching what was going on. The next was a scenario that dealt with an adulterous affair between an officer and dispatcher (that shit doesn't happen, does it?).

The third station had a couple other minor scenarios and a little interview about you and what you've done to prepare, blah, blah, blah.

For us, we got a study guide and were told what books to study. I bought the books and studied the sections they indicated and studied the policy manual for the department. It seemed to help since I scored #1.

The seniority points didn't affect my placing at all, but the #4 guy would have been #2 it he had maxed out the seniority points. Which in this case made a huge difference to him since we have 2 Sgt spots opening up.

voodoo_man
04-10-2016, 05:50 PM
I've only done the oral board once. In our promotion process there's three parts - seniority points, written test and a series of "scenario" type oral evaluation "stations". They gave us a written scenario to study for 5-10 minutes, then we had to come in and interact/speak with the evaluators.

One "station" included 2 scenarios where the evaluators role played. One of those scenarios was a domestic/agg burglary call that they wanted you to review with a "prosecutor" (played by a real prosecutor). They were look My to see if you knew the elements that made the DV an agg burglary. The second scenario dealt with a press release and interview with the media. The press release was about an officer in trouble for a social media lost he made. In this scenario they were looking for how well you knew the discipline/IA procedures/process. They also tried to get you to give your personal opinion about what had happened to the officer discipline wise.

The next station dealt with 2 scenarios where they just quizzed you on what you would do. One was a scenario where you happened to find out your officers were performing an illegal strip search of a suspect in a fire department shower room and it was a male suspect and there were female firefighters watching what was going on. The next was a scenario that dealt with an adulterous affair between an officer and dispatcher (that shit doesn't happen, does it?).

The third station had a couple other minor scenarios and a little interview about you and what you've done to prepare, blah, blah, blah.

For us, we got a study guide and were told what books to study. I bought the books and studied the sections they indicated and studied the policy manual for the department. It seemed to help since I scored #1.

The seniority points didn't affect my placing at all, but the #4 guy would have been #2 it he had maxed out the seniority points. Which in this case made a huge difference to him since we have 2 Sgt spots opening up.

Yours seems a little bit more "practical" than the way others do it.

pablo
04-10-2016, 05:53 PM
Wear appropriate attire, I've seen a couple guys go into interviews for positions that they had locked down, and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, because they came bebopping in dressed like a slob There's no extra credit for dressing right, but there are deductions for not doing it.

voodoo_man
04-10-2016, 05:54 PM
Wear appropriate attire, I've seen a couple guys go into interviews for positions that they had locked down, and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, because they came bebopping in dressed like a slob There's no extra credit for dressing right, but there are deductions for not doing it.

I've heard arguments for wearing a suit, for wearing your class-A's and for wearing your daily uniform.

Lon
04-10-2016, 05:56 PM
Yours seems a little bit more "practical" than the way others do it.

A lot of departments around here do it that way. There's a company that they use that handles the process for them. None of our personnel except the HR director have anything to do with the testing. And all HR does is act as the go between. They don't know the scenarios or written test questions.

Lon
04-10-2016, 05:57 PM
I've heard arguments for wearing a suit, for wearing your class-A's and for wearing your daily uniform.

There were 10 of us. I think we all wore suits.

KeeFus
04-10-2016, 06:19 PM
I wore my uniform. I did NOT wear all the ribbons...for that matter I never wear them. I dont like all the "bling" that they seem to add to the uniform. A guy I used to work with came in wearing a stack of them. When they (folks from various agencies that were farmed out for us to use) asked what they were for he was clueless on some of them. He didn't get oromoted.

Policy. Know policy well, especially procedural stuff within your agency. Also know what should be common knowledge...like use of force, chase policy, etc as well as general statures that patrol officers commonly use.

On the situational stuff, use good judgement. Sometimes policy wont have the answer and being genuine in handling the issue is what is needed. Mine was not all that hard, just dealing with a disgruntled officer.

voodoo_man
04-10-2016, 06:42 PM
We have so many different uniforms, even for patrol, especially counting the units within special patroll. One of the reasons I dont wear a uniform. Also, we cant wear name or badge plates and the evaluators cannot ask us questions, but many do.

JR1572
04-10-2016, 08:59 PM
Wear appropriate attire, I've seen a couple guys go into interviews for positions that they had locked down, and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, because they came bebopping in dressed like a slob There's no extra credit for dressing right, but there are deductions for not doing it.


I've heard arguments for wearing a suit, for wearing your class-A's and for wearing your daily uniform.


There were 10 of us. I think we all wore suits.


I wore my uniform. I did NOT wear all the ribbons...for that matter I never wear them. I dont like all the "bling" that they seem to add to the uniform. A guy I used to work with came in wearing a stack of them. When they (folks from various agencies that were farmed out for us to use) asked what they were for he was clueless on some of them. He didn't get oromoted.


We have so many different uniforms, even for patrol, especially counting the units within special patroll. One of the reasons I dont wear a uniform. Also, we cant wear name or badge plates and the evaluators cannot ask us questions, but many do.

I wore a suit to every interview. Guys who were 10-8 on patrol at the time of the interview showed up in uniform. Every other person that I went against wore a suit. Make sure your shoes and belt match too. After spending almost three years working and testifying in court daily, you can only imagine the ensembles I've seen people wearing when they thought they were "dressed appropriately."

Again, wear a suit.

JR1572

Erick Gelhaus
04-10-2016, 10:57 PM
As was mentioned, every agency is different. And the can be very different.

Start preparing early. Know where your office is going process-wise and how they intend to get there. Some questions constantly re-appear albeit with different phrasing. In addition to some very focused coaching by a couple retired Lts, spend time talking with the Lts and Captains who may be on your panels. Didn't go with the intent of getting answers, my idea was to ensure I was comfortable talking with them.
Andrew Borello authored a pretty decent book on preparing for sergeant interviews, regardless of how an agency does them.
Talk to those who went through the last testing processing or two. Both the successful & unsuccessful, there will be interesting insights.
Formal education & training are becoming more essential, have an answer as to what you've done.

Finally, don't work that day. Do nothing other than test. Take the rest of the day off. If you've really put in the prep time you owe it to yourself.

Josh Runkle
04-11-2016, 01:37 PM
I'm not LE, but I have gone through formal Oral Boards for EMS and Search and Rescue several times.

In EMS, I usually dress professionally, but don't wear a tie. So like, a suit without a tie, but everything else very nice. EMS is a profession that requires following the rules every day when you're an EMT, but for Paramedics, it's often more fluid. You're usually in charge and need to be able to adapt to new environments. So, as an EMT, I wore a tie, as a Paramedic, I dressed very professionally, but didn't wear a tie. I wanted to give off the impression of professionalism without too much rigidity.

In SAR, I knew a connection coming in, and I had an informal board to come in, but a formal board before commissioning. I wore Class-Bs to that.

When I had formal boards for promotion, I've always worn Class-As, not because it was required, but out of respect for the Board, and you "dress for the position you want, not the position you have".

As far as interview techniques: I have passed every oral board I've done. I had a prior position in sales for about 8 years before EMS or SAR, so public speaking and "charming" on demand were skills I already had in my wheelhouse. However, I was mostly direct. When asked "what are your biggest weaknesses", I always gave straight shooting, very direct answers.

When I was being promoted to Lieutenant, there were a lot of questions regarding how I would approach something if my Captain did something that wasn't illegal, but was harmful. I told them that I would address it directly to the Captain and keep it "in house". They seemed displeased at my answer that I wouldn't report it. Later, I found out that they all agreed that the aspect of loyalty (but not approval of actions) was much more commendable than someone who always jumps rank to make complaints, and something they all wish they had. I passed that board despite the obvious frowns during that question.

My experience has been that the higher up in rank the Oral Board is for, the tougher the questions are. Your record by that point already shows what you would do in certain situations, and so there's no point in asking about the past (unless it's a disciplinary review board), usually the questions are about situations you haven't faced yet...

The best way to prepare for these types of things are to get a mentor who's already in this type of position, go for a long hike, canoe trip, whatever, and ask them what the toughest things they've faced on the job have been and how they handled it. Go home, think about what you would do, and you're 90% there.

andre3k
04-12-2016, 03:41 AM
Since we have that Sgt thread and I know many of us have done prep for oral boards, lets have a thread on tips, tricks, suggestions, opinions or just one liners to use in order to successfully prepare and get a good grade/score on the boards.

I just went through this process and an currently finishing up my Patrol Supervisor training program. My agency utilizes an Assessment Center to evaluate the top 200 candidates from the written test. No live interviewers, its all video and audio recorded and the actual assessment is done off site by the testing vendor. The best preparation for me was to attend a test prep class and to constantly go over scenarios while recording my responses. I could go back and critique myself or show the video to a supervisor I trusted to give me an honest evaluation. I also talked to people that had done well on previous promotional lists and got suggestions from them. Knowing your department policy, having confidence in that knowledge, and being well spoken and articulate go a long way in this part of the promotional process.