So you want to be a Mountie? RCMP entrance-exam workshops help prep the 1,300 recruits a year the force hires
Credit to Author: Gordon McIntyre| Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2019 01:55:36 +0000
Thinking of a career in law enforcement and wonder what the requirements are?
The RCMP holds regular entrance-exam workshops in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island, and has begun holding them in the Okanagan as well.
“We’re starting to spread our wings more and more,” said Const. Erika Dirsus of the RCMP’s proactive recruiting unit at E-Division headquarters in Surrey. “We’re going farther and farther to more, I guess, isolated areas because we know that quite a lot of people can’t necessarily drive to get to career presentations or prep workshops, or even exam sessions, so we go out there.”
Because of retirements and growing populations, the Mounties are hiring almost 1,300 officers a year across the country.
“It’s been like that for the last few years and it’s going to continue,” Dirsus said. “There is a lot of diversity in Canada and I think we’re missing out if we don’t spread our wings a little bit more and reach out to people who might not be able to, because of the area they live, might not be able to reach a career presentation or exam presentation.”
The RCMP test is sort of like a general aptitude test, she said, but one that’s looking specifically for those who would make good cops.
There is a reading and comprehension section, composition (to see if you can articulate in writing complex thoughts clearly and concisely), professional judgment, logic, math, and recognition and identification (can you remember a face, for example, and choose it out of a group of faces?).
RCMP officers at a 2006 Remembrance Day ceremony. The police force is working to become more diverse as it looks for recruits to replace those retiring.
Nor is the RCMP like any other police force in the world, Dirsus said. Not only is it Canada’s federal force, it provides police services provincially and municipally, and even internationally.
There are about 18,500 officers in the force, covering general duty, forensic evidence collection, organized crime, emergency response, national security, canine service, marine, explosives disposal and more.
Some considerations: Police work is shift work and requires working on holidays, you can be assigned anywhere in Canada, you’re required to carry a gun (and use it or any other force necessary to restore order), and you will be exposed to trauma, violence and disturbing events.
Age isn’t an issue: The average age of a cadet at the RCMP’s national training centre in Regina is 28, and people in their 50s have been hired (24 of them in the past 10 years).
But while being a minimum of 19 is the only age requirement, you do need to be fit.
“There’s no age cap or anything like that,” Dirsus said. “I’ve talked to people who are 52, 53, who have written the exam and I’m like, ‘Wow, good for you.’ I was 25 when I started.
“If you can pass the application stages, pass those benchmarks and then go to Regina and you’re physically fit and you pass everything else, why not?” The RCMP academy, known as Depot Division, is in Regina.
If anything, mature applicants looking for a second career bring valuable life experience, she said.
“The RCMP has a lot to offer opportunity-wise, career-wise, but what does the applicant have to offer? It goes both ways.”
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