What is a Police Behavioral Interview? Learn What the Oral Board is Trying to Find Out

What is behavioral event interviewing or BEI? Well it is a standardized method of interviewing technique that police departments use to interview potential candidates. The structure of the interview and the delivery method was designed to measure how well an applicant will actually do as a police officer, good or bad. The principle behind this method is the belief that past behavior is a good indicator of future behavior. Meaning if you had poor work ethic in the past, you'll have poor work ethic in the future.

Traditional Interview Style Compared To Police Behavioral Interviewing:
In a traditional non-police interview session, the interviewer will look over the applicant's resume, while asking open ended questions to obtain more information about the prospective hire. For example you should expect to get asked the following question during a traditional job interview session: Tell me about your last place of employment or Why did you decide to leave your last place of employment?
In contrast, during a police behavioral interview, you'll be asked a set of standardized questions created to get you to expand on certain events in your life and how you handled it. With each response, you will be encouraged by the panel to describe situations and/or circumstances in your past and how you were affected by each event. The interview board will use this information to determine your abilities as it relates to police work.

Here's a typical police behavioral interview question:
All three sets of questions below have a purpose, one question will measure your leadership potential, and the other two will measure your problem solving capabilities, and your ability to take initiative.

1. Describe a time in your life when you had a difficult problem to solve. In what way did you identify the problem and how did you solve it?
2. Articulate a time in your life when you tried to motivate a friend, family member and/or co-worker to do something that they did not want to do.
3. Describe a time in your life where you decided to do something that you knew something had to be done, and you took immediate steps to get it done.

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