What are the components and advantages of the assessment center process for hiring and promoting police personnel?

Question

What will be an ideal response

Answer 1

To obtain the most-capable people for chief executive positions (and also for middle-management and even supervisory positions) in policing, the "strong" method has proved to be an efficacious means of hiring and promoting personnel. The process may include interviews; psychological tests; in-basket exercises; management tasks; group discussions; role-playing exercises such as simulations of interviews with subordinates, the public, and news media; fact-finding exercises; oral presentation exercises; and written communications exercises. The first step is to identify behaviors important to successful performance in the position. Individual and group role-playing are valuable hands-on exercises during the selection process. During each exercise, several assessors or raters analyze each candidate's performance and record some type of evaluation; when the assessment center process ends, each rater submits his or her rating information to the person making the hiring or promotion decision. Assessment center procedures are logistically more difficult to conduct, as well as more labor-intensive and costly, than traditional interviews, but they are well worth the extra investment.