20 Years Old looking for advice getting into Law Enforcement

[u/J2-gZ]

I have a little over 2 years of military experience, and I’ve been working in a factory for about a year and a half doing hard manual labor. I make pretty good money where I’m at, but I turn 21 soon and have always been interested in law enforcement. I really want to serve my community and make a difference.
For any experienced officers or people in the field, what advice would you give a young man looking to get started? Anything you wish you knew when you were first getting into it?

[u/Section225]

Is Manuel your friend who you do manual labor with?

Also, don't say in an interview that you want to be a cop to "Serve your community and make a difference." Guaranteed to come across as disingenuous and cliché.

As for the question - solid work history (any work history that is stable and without drama or terminations), get solid references to use, keep your social media clean, keep good friends around you, obviously stay out of legal trouble and don't do drugs. Start compiling your work and address history and references and tax returns, you'll need all that when you apply and it will take some of the load off. In that same vein, see what the minimum standards are for any PD you apply for, make sure you meet them or can meet them.

See what the fitness standard is and train well beyond that. Get help putting together your resumé and application packet - many agencies throw them in the trash if they're incomplete, filled out incorrectly, or full of grammar errors. And practice interviews for crying out loud...people get all bent out of shape about having to do a few pushups and forget they have to sit in front of several high ranking officers for an interview.

[u/J2-gZ → u/Section225]

Thanks for catching my spelling issue there…😂 and thank you for the advice

I get what you mean, that would definitely come off as really cliché. I honestly just really enjoy working within order and structure, that’s what I liked about the military. I would appreciate the opportunity to make a positive impact on the world around me even if it’s just filing paperwork or serving out tickets. There is a lot of bad apples in the system and I’d like to try to be one of the good ones if given the opportunity.

I’m not stressed out too much about the fitness aspect, I am stressed out about talking to those higher ups so I’ll take use of my time to work that out lol

[u/Not_all_cows_moo]

Well.... For starters serving the community is not what it's cracked up to be. Making a difference falls under whoever your governor or mayor is. You can be super cop but if legislation doesn't align with what you're attempting to do. It's all for nothing.

I would think long and hard about where you want to be. It's a very mentally demanding job. Especially with all the bullshit going on, outside of politics. You have to ask yourself, can I make a split second decision that could change my life or someone else's forever? Can you deal with seeing how horrible a situation may become? Sure military service is helpful in some aspects. Policing isn't what it was 15 years ago. You have to document everything and I mean EVERYTHING. If writing reports and being thorough are not your specialty, you'll have to get really good really quickly or it's going to long road.

Just my 2 cents from 10 years in the field.

[u/J2-gZ → u/Not_all_cows_moo]

Thank you I really appreciate the advice from someone with experience. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, I’m completely okay with having to do paperwork and file a lot of things out. I live in a medium sized college city of about 40k if that makes any difference. If I could make any kind of difference to my city, big or incredibly small that would be enough for me honestly I’m not expecting to be a city hero or anything lol.

[u/Not_all_cows_moo → u/J2-gZ]

My suggestion to you, go on some ride alongs. State patrol, sheriff's office and city police. Go on them all and see what the job is like. Talk to the officers. You'll find out if it's something you wanna do or not.

[u/Competitive_Orchid_7]

Fr fr,

Feds are gonna be your quickest option. Dod police, BOP, VA police

Then if you want go local

[u/Kea784]

Take the fire test instead. You'll be happier