The first stage of the process is to complete an online application form to join as a Police Community Support Officer within West Midlands Police.

Your application form should be completed in full with no omissions. If the recruitment team need to contact you about missing information or documents this may slow down your application.

Your application form needs to provide the evidence that allow the recruitment team to understand your skills and experience. ​

When you submit your application form the recruitment team will check that all of the required sections and documents are attached to your application form.

Please help the team by uploading:

• Any reasonable adjustment reports (i.e dyslexia)
• Photographs of any tattoos on your neck, forearms or face.

Our online values based questionnaire is designed to test key skills required in the role of a Police Community Support Officer.

The questionnaire will look to assess your values and how you make decisions in given circumstances. You will not have to prepare for the online assessment; these will be completed in your home (or convenient place of your choosing such as a library).

Candidates that reach the required score on the value based questionnaire will then be invited to undertake a video based interview, where you will submit a pre-recorded interview to the team.

The interview will give you the opportunity to demonstrate you have the abilities and experience to complete the role of Police Community Support Officer.

Our interviews are based around the College of Policing ‘Competency and Values Framework’ at level 1; you can find out more about this framework and the competencies within it.  Each candidate is asked the same set of questions and they are marked using a pre-set marking guide to ensure consistency.

Candidates that reach the required score on the video based interview will then be invited to attend a Assessment Cetre. 

The Assessment Centre will include a Competency Based Interview and practical role specific exercises.  

We use a team of trained assessors and we run this assessment in-house but you will need to pass this assessment centre to progress to the next stages. 

The role of Police Community Support Officer requires security vetting and Counter Terrorism Clearance. You will be required to complete information regarding yourself, your parents and family and any close associations that you have that may make you vulnerable as a member of West Midlands Police (i.e. a friend who you know has a criminal history who you see frequently).

We ask that you are honest on these forms as anything missed off will result in failure to obtain the required clearances and your application maybe discontinued at this point. If you are honest about your information each individual is looked at on a case by case basis and it may not affect your application. ​

You will be required to complete a medical history questionnaire (signed by your GP) and attend a medical examination which includes a pre-employment drugs screening. Our Occupational Health department will assess your suitability to carry out the role you have applied for. This may include a medical report request from your family GP.

You will also be invited to attend a fitness and biometrics appointment where you will undertake the force fitness test and your DNA will be taken to check out files and eliminate you from future crime scenes should you be successful in being appointed.

On successful completion of all of the above steps you will then be offered a start date with West Midlands Police as a Police CommunitySupport Officer and start your training with us. 

Please note that candidates are not allowed annual leave in their first 12 weeks of appointment. You will be given certain weeks off during training which you will be made aware of but due to the intense training schedule we cannot accommodate any leave outside of these times. 

You will now be ready to put on that uniform and join the team.