Scott L
Contributor
Are you also applying for a corrections position? This has a back door path for a large number of road patrolmen...
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
better yet. Don't do it. It sucks. The hours suck. The things you'll be forced to do sucks. Working weekends sucks. Divorce sucks. Being ordered to do something you know is not going to work and going to make more work for you but still having to do it sucks. Working Xmas, New years, july 4th sucks. Getting eyeballed off duty by scumbags in line at walmart sucks. Keeping your opinions about religion, politics etc to yourself sucks. Getting yanked in a office and grilled about what you did over the weekend on your own time sucks. Bleeding, crippling yourself, sacrificng 20 years of holidays, relationships etc then get a sucky cake and a sucky watch along with a boot in the butt REALLY sucks.
THE only way anyone should ever do this job is because as sucky as all that is above... you feel even suckier not doing it. If you are not driven to it, haunted by it, feel it in your inner core.. don't do it.
The bottomline with applying for a LEO position, and I'm sure your instructors hammered this into you, is to apply EVERYWHERE. You must be willing to relocate during these "budget crisis" times. Some agencies are laying off (Port St. Lucie just dropped more than 20 officers two weeks ago), others won't return calls, and some are dropping pay and hiring....
It's not a very promising time to jump into this career... but, it will get better. So keep searching and keep applying.
Now, about your record... I highly doubt your Open Container arrest will really keep you from getting hired with most agencies, it may drop you behind a couple of otherwise equally qualified candidates. But it shouldn't keep you from getting hired. Your driving record, on the other hand, is more likely to keep you out. Too many recent tickets, more than one speeding ticket, or any careless/wreckless tickets can really ruin your apps. I hope you don't have any street racing tickets, cuz then it's pretty hopeless.
Remember, there are a lot less agencies that are openly hiring than 3 years ago... you can find them, just keep searching.
How many agencies have you applied to???
EDIT: Oh yea, unless you are comfortable going into corrections I wouldn't suggest it... It's a special kind of person who can deal with what they do, I couldn't do it... more power to 'em!!!