Questions to Ask Police Officers in an Interview
A hiring board usually has about an hour to judge whether someone should be given a badge, a car, and discretion over other people's liberty. These twenty-one questions are built for that hour. They cover why this department, how the candidate has handled being wrong, what they would do with an unlawful order or a partner falsifying reports, how they think about going hands-on, and whether the schedule is survivable for their household. Written for oral boards, chiefs, and panels interviewing recruits or lateral hires.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Why this department, and what do you know about the community here?
Why ask it
Candidates who applied everywhere give an answer about policing in general. Strong ones name the beat structure, a local issue, the size of the agency, or the reason they want to work where they already live. Nobody who has done ten minutes of homework struggles with this.
Walk me through your work history and what each job taught you about dealing with people
Why ask it
Bartending, nursing, teaching, retail, and the military all produce transferable skills, and how the candidate frames them shows whether they see the job as talking to people or as arresting them. Watch for gaps in the history that the background investigator will have to chase anyway.
What made you choose policing over other work you could get?
Why ask it
Answers about wanting to help are unfalsifiable and therefore uninformative. Better answers are specific and sometimes unflattering: a stable pension, a family trade, a case they witnessed, a wish to work outdoors. A concrete motive is something you can check against the rest of the application; a stated ideal is not.
What do you think this job actually consists of day to day?
Why ask it
This tests whether the candidate has spoken to a working officer or only watched television. Someone who mentions report writing, waiting on tow trucks, welfare checks, and court appearances has done a ride-along or asked around, and will be less shocked in month three.
Tell me about a time you talked someone out of a confrontation
Why ask it
You are listening for the words they used, not the outcome. Strong answers include the specific move: dropping their volume, walking the person away from an audience, sitting down, offering a choice. Answers with no dialogue in them usually describe an event the candidate only watched.
Tell me about a mistake you made at work and what happened afterwards
Why ask it
The tell is whether they reported it themselves or waited to be caught, and whether they can describe the correction without blaming a manager. Candidates who cannot name a single mistake are either inexperienced or unwilling to be examined, and both matter here.
Tell me about a time you were wrong about a person
Why ask it
Policing rewards quick reads and punishes rigid ones. This shows whether the candidate can update. Listen for what changed their mind, because an answer in which new information arrived and nothing shifted is the concerning version.
How do you handle being told no by a supervisor when you are sure you are right?
Why ask it
Both extremes are problems: a candidate who never pushes back will not raise a safety concern, and one who cannot accept a decision will not last on a shift. The useful answer describes disagreeing at the time and complying afterwards, with an example attached.
What would you do if you were given an order you believed was unlawful?
Why ask it
The answer should include a route: asking the supervisor to clarify, escalating, documenting. A candidate who says they would refuse and stops there has not thought about what happens next, and one who says they would simply follow it is telling you something you need to hear.
You stop a car for speeding and the driver is married to someone in this department. What happens?
Why ask it
A live test of whether the candidate can name the pressure out loud. Strong answers acknowledge the awkwardness, keep the decision on the driving, and often include telling a supervisor. Answers that pretend they would not notice are not credible.
You are first to arrive at a fight outside a bar with twenty people around. What are you doing in the first minute?
Why ask it
Judge the ordering: position, radio, backup, watching hands, dealing with the crowd before the individuals. Candidates who begin by wading into the middle, or who cannot proceed without being prompted, are showing you how they process under load.
Talk me through how you would decide to go hands-on with someone
Why ask it
You want reasoning rather than recited policy: distance, what the hands are doing, exits, whether time is available, what happens if they wait. A candidate who only quotes the force continuum has memorised something, and one with no framework at all has not thought about it.
What would you do if the officer you ride with was falsifying reports?
Why ask it
The most important integrity question here, and the one candidates most often answer in slogans. Press for mechanics: who they would tell, at what point, and what they would do if the supervisor did nothing. Hesitation is data worth exploring rather than an automatic disqualification.
Is there anything in your background we should hear from you before we find it ourselves?
Why ask it
The background investigation will surface old citations, credit problems, past drug use, and terminations regardless. Candidates who volunteer these calmly usually clear; candidates who omit something that later turns up have failed the honesty test rather than the conduct one.
How do you handle being insulted, filmed, or provoked while you are working?
Why ask it
Every shift now includes a camera. Strong answers treat that as normal and describe holding the same tone regardless. Answers that dwell on how unfair the filming is, rather than on their own conduct, predict the complaints you will be reading later.
How do you get through a shift where nothing happens for eight hours?
Why ask it
Boredom rather than danger is the usual condition, and it is where bad habits form. Listen for self-directed work such as learning addresses, following up old reports, or foot patrol, versus an answer that amounts to waiting for the radio.
What does your household think of the schedule, and who covers when you get held over?
Why ask it
Rotating shifts, court on days off, and mandatory overtime end more careers than any single incident. A candidate who has already worked out childcare, sleep, and a partner's hours has thought realistically; one who has never raised it at home may resign inside two years.
How do you plan to learn this city, the streets and who lives where?
Why ask it
Local knowledge separates a competent officer from a lost one, and it is built deliberately. Good answers mention driving the area off duty, learning landmarks by the names residents use, and talking to people when there is no call attached.
What kind of supervisor gets the best work out of you?
Why ask it
This surfaces fit with your actual sergeants rather than your ideal ones. A candidate who needs constant direction, or one who wants to be left alone entirely, may still be hireable, but you want to know which shift to put them on.
What would make you leave this job?
Why ask it
Candidates prepare for a question about staying, so this one gets a less rehearsed answer. Named conditions such as an unethical order, a specific injury, or a move for family reasons are more reassuring than a claim that nothing ever would.
What do you want to ask us?
Why ask it
The questions a candidate brings show where their attention is. Asking about field training, probation length, the shift bid system, or how the department handled a recent incident indicates real interest. No questions at all usually means no preparation.
Running the Interview
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Setting the Board Up
Agree on what a pass looks like before the first candidate
Write down what a satisfactory answer contains for each question and score against that. Panels that decide as they go end up ranking candidates by likeability, and the third interview of the day gets judged against the second rather than against the standard.
Split the panel's jobs
One person asks, one takes near-verbatim notes, one watches. Trying to do all three at once means you keep an impression and lose the wording, and the wording is what you need when two candidates score close.
Ask the same core questions of everyone
Follow-ups can differ, but the base set should not. Consistency is what makes the comparison defensible later, and it protects the process if a rejected candidate challenges it.
Stay out of prohibited territory
Questions touching on age, religion, national origin, disability, pregnancy, or family plans are off the table. Where you need to know about availability, ask directly about willingness to work rotating shifts and overtime rather than about anyone's home circumstances.
Reading the Answers
- Ask for the most recent example rather than the best one. Candidates keep one polished story ready; the recent case is unrehearsed and shows how they operate now.
- When an answer is abstract, ask what they said out loud. Real incidents come with dialogue, borrowed ones come with summaries.
- Let silence sit after a scenario question. Thinking before speaking is a virtue in this job, and filling the gap denies you the chance to see it.
- Follow every scenario with "and then what?" twice. Most candidates have a first move ready and nothing behind it, and the second and third steps are where judgement shows.
- Note where a candidate uses "we" for successes and "they" for failures. The pattern holds across an interview and it predicts how incidents will get reported.
Where These Interviews Go Wrong
Rewarding the smoothest talker
Some capable officers interview poorly, and some fluent candidates are repeating language from an interview preparation course. Anchor on how specific the examples are rather than on delivery, and treat unusually polished phrasing as a prompt to dig rather than a reason to score up.
Leaning entirely on hypotheticals
Scenario questions measure how someone talks about a situation, not how they behave in one. Pair each with a past-behaviour question on the same theme and give more weight to the answer that has a date and a place attached.
Selling the department instead of examining the candidate
Understaffed agencies drift into recruitment mode halfway through. Once the panel starts persuading, the candidate stops being tested and you learn nothing further. Save the pitch until after the scoring is written down.
Treating the interview as the background check
The board sees an hour of prepared behaviour. Previous supervisors, neighbours, driving history, and public posts are where the durable information sits. If an answer raises a question, hand it to the investigator rather than trying to settle it in the room.
After the Interview
- Score independently before anyone discusses. Panels converge fast once the first person speaks, which wastes having three people in the room.
- Write a sentence of reasoning beside each score. "Weak on the falsified reports question, would not say who he would tell" is usable in six weeks; a number is not.
- Pass unresolved concerns to the background investigator in writing, with the exact question and the exact answer.
- Note which questions produced nothing useful across every candidate and replace them next cycle. A question everyone answers identically is not sorting anyone.