After exploring this question for quite some time, I’ve come to the conclusion that you don’t need to have a security background to be a good police officer candidate. As a professional who has been in the security industry for nearly a decade, I have had the opportunity to discuss many of the questions I had about becoming a police officer with many different officers. Many of these officers did not give me a straight answer when I asked if security experience is relevant to policing.

The reason I didn’t get any direct answers to my question was because there is no direct correlation between security experience and having a better chance of getting hired as a police officer. Over the years, I have met many people who had security backgrounds and were hired because they met the criteria that recruiters were looking for in a candidate. On the other hand, I also know people who had no security background but who possess the necessary skills to be a good officer and are now serving in the local police department.

As long as an individual possesses the relevant skills that are highly valued by police recruiters, the field of work they are currently in has no impact on their candidacy. What do police recruiters look for in a candidate? Every time I have asked this question to any officer, the most common answer is LIFE EXPERIENCE.

Life experience has always been a concept that I have found vague and for quite some time, I did not understand what it really meant at the beginning of my career. After further exploration of the concept through interviews with police officers, I found that this concept is not as complicated as one would think. To gain more life experience, one would simply need to go out and start living their life. Police recruiters find that people who have more life experience have more to offer on the job. Some examples of what life experience may include: having a child, experiencing the death of a loved one, experience in multiple career fields, and moving out of your parents’ home.

Police recruiters also value someone who has a lot of VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE. Candidates who dedicate their time and get involved in the community demonstrate a commitment to making a difference. The top priority of every police department is to make the community a safer place, and a person who is involved in the community is someone who shares the same goal and mission as law enforcement.

These are the two main experiences police recruiters look for when hiring for the police officer position. As long as you have life and volunteer experience and have high moral character, you don’t need security experience as a springboard to a career in law enforcement. While working in the security industry will provide an individual with effective communicative, organizational, and analytical thinking skills, these skills can also be achieved through other career fields. In fact, police recruiters are more likely to hire candidates who don’t have security experience. This creates a diversification of police officers from all walks of life.