Filled application out twice, the first time I missed putting all my work history and instead of calling me to tell me, so I could correct it, they just mailed a letter saying, "sorry, but you were not selected". Amazing how the time to call or email would've cost them less and taken less time than mailing a letter.
Applied again a couple months later when I noticed posting was still up. Since I felt sure that's why I wasn't selected, I redid my application and personally took it into City Hall. A month or so later, I got a call to come in for the typing test and if you passed you would proceed into interview. Passed typing test with flying colors. You have 3 minutes to type as many words as you can with less than 10% errors. You get a warm-up and two tries to pass test.
Interview was an awful experience. I've had others I knew who interviewed to be a dispatcher in different cities say theirs went nothing like mine did, and that there's was actually a very positive experience. I interviewed with two people at the same time. One was one of the most impersonal people I've ever met and seemed like I was interrupting their day to come in to interview with me and had a ton of other things they'd rather be doing. Within the first five minutes I wanted to just get up and walk out (which I should have). They barely looked at my application with my experience and didn't once look at my resume. Had a whole packet of "scenario questions" and were writing my answers the whole time, rarely ever looking up at me and making eye contact. The whole thing was very scripted and by the book, didn't care to really get to know me as a person, but had an agenda and only cared about getting the answers they needed to fill in their packet. They claimed Benbrook was a "starter city" and most come to work there first before moving on to bigger cities once they've gained experience. They didn't care at all about my experience, qualifications, or typing speed. Even though I never worked in a police department, they still asked me questions that I very well would need training in to answer adequately, yet when I did answer them to the best of my knowledge, they used them against me. They were very adamant about how this position would be micro-managed (see interview question for more details).
After interview they said they would follow-up within a week or two with a phone call if I were to move on in the process. Instead, I received another letter in the mail stating, "per oral interview, you were not selected". I know very well it was because I did not want to be micro-managed.
I will never recommend someone applying to this police department. Interview was a terrible experience and made me feel belittled. I feel this just goes to show a glimpse of probably how terrible it is to work for these people and why this position continues to be open for many months without any leads.
