This decision regarding who gets promoted is among the two or three major decisions in a police officer's life. More specifically, the importance rests on the following three points: 1. If the Officer is promoted, s/he immediately begins earning between $7,000.00 and $9,500.00 more every year for the rest of her/his career, 2. The successful candidate is now elibible to compete for higher level jobs for which they were previously unqualified to compete, 3. there is substantial prestige and better working conditions for Police Sergeant than there are for the Police Officer.
The candidates for promotion know how to study for a multiple choice written test but many of them are looking for a resource to use in preparing for the promotional testing. I ought to know this because I have been creating and implementing assessment centers for Police Departments and Fire Departments across the country since 1974.
What is an assessment center? It is a highly predictive and merit based process for selecting supervisors and managers from among line workers. It uses simulations of the typical type of problems that a supervisor would encounter on the job (e.g. an In Basket Exercise which simulates the contents of a supervisor's in basket and requires her/him to make various decisions, a Coaching Exeercise which requires the candidate to prepare for and conduct a meeting with a person who plays the role of a Police Officer with some type of work problem, etc.)The book not only comes with a sealed packet of three assessment center exercises but also the answers to the exercises so that the reader can not only read about the process and practice actual assessment center exercises but also compare their performance against a scoring guide which is also contained in the packet and make changes before they attend their promotional assessment center.