No ordinary job interview

Marisa O’Neil

It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it -- and local police

departments are looking for the best people they can find.

The Newport Beach and Costa Mesa police departments are going to

great lengths to recruit and train new officers to patrol the streets

and eventually investigate homicides, handle police dogs or fly air

support. But potential recruits first have to pass a battery of

mental and physical challenges, extensive background checks, lie

detector tests and six months of military-style police academy.

It’s enough to make the average job interview seem like a Sunday

picnic.

In Newport Beach, for example, only about 1% of applicants end up

wearing the uniform.

“You want to do something so bad,” rookie Newport Beach officer

Mark Short, 27, said. “And each step of the way you’re getting

evaluated.”

Police departments can’t coddle recruits through the process, but

some are trying to make it less intimidating. That’s why Costa Mesa

police implemented a mentoring program for recruits, and Newport

Beach just held its first pre-application orientation.

The look of today’s recruits has changed since the early days of

police work.

Police officers were traditionally thought of as blue-collar

workers, often coming from a family with a history of law enforcement

jobs. Then after the Vietnam War, many veterans put their training to

work at police departments.

Now, many of those post-Vietnam recruits are retiring, and police

departments are focusing more on community policing and the use of

technology. That means departments are looking for officers with

skills in writing and computers.

“In the last few years, we’ve had more younger people looking for

a professional career in police work,” said Jeff Brouwer, a

recruiting officer for Newport Beach. “It used to be they’d hire the

biggest, most muscular guys they could find. That’s totally changed.

Now we’ve realized we don’t need a bunch of muscle guys. We need

people who are articulate, able to communicate well.”

Better salaries and attractive retirement packages are drawing

higher-caliber applicants, often with degrees in sociology, criminal

justice or, like Short, psychology.

“People coming out of college are looking at a broader range of

[career] opportunities,” said Hugh Tate, training officer for the

Costa Mesa Police Department. “But they have to realize it’s not like

TV.”

And, college degree or not, all officers start in patrol, driving

a beat, writing tickets and cooling down domestic disturbances. The

special assignments -- K-9, motorcycle, detective, helicopter -- come

after lots of work on the job.

“People think they will just join a department and be a detective

or ride a bicycle,” Brouwer said. “They don’t realize there’s a lot

of work before you get to that.”

Before they get a uniform, potential recruits have to pass a

battery of tests that often takes a year or more to complete. Because

the process is so complicated and so intimidating, Newport Beach and

Costa Mesa are working to demystify it.

Newport Beach recently held its orientation, walking about 100

interested applicants through the application process and giving them

a tour of the station. They learned that about 99% of applicants

don’t get hired as officers and that about 98% of women are

disqualified because they can’t hoist themselves over the 6-foot wall

in the physical agility test.

They also learned that they can practice techniques to get over

the wall and can find study questions in books and on the Internet to

prepare for the written test, the first step in the application

process.

“A lot of time we get 25 to 30% passing the written test and a lot

not passing the agility test,” Brouwer said. “It’s not so much that

they can’t pass, but they aren’t prepared.”

Once they pass the written and physical tests, recruits face a

potentially intimidating interview with three officers.

“It’s different than a normal job interview,” Brouwer said. “It’s

three guys in uniforms and guns sitting across from you.”

At Costa Mesa, a mentoring program connects working officers with

recruits after they pass the interview, Tate said. The officers can

give advice and answer questions as potential hires go through the

process. After that comes a three-hour polygraph test and extensive

background checks that can take months. Costa Mesa then puts its new

hires through a two-week pre-academy program to ease them into the

next phase.

If recruits pass all that, they still face six months of training

and high stress at the Orange County Sheriff Department’s police

academy.

That training helps them respond to stressful situations they’ll

face out in the field, in the real world, Short said. Rookie police

officers like him ride with field training officers during a

probation period.

“It feels like everything’s there in your mind,” Short said of

transitioning from the academy to the streets. “You just have to put

it together.”

Short, whose older brother, Jay Short, works as a Newport Beach

detective, said he’s happy with his career choice. He recommended

that anyone who’s thinking of becoming a police officer should

prepare mentally and physically before applying.

His training officer, Brandon Rodriguez, 32, said it doesn’t take

a special type of person to be a police officer. It just takes

someone who wants to do it and who’s willing to work hard.

“It takes dedication and a lot of heart,” Rodriguez said. “You

have to really want to go out there and make a difference.”