When the Panel Becomes a Tablet
A trend is spreading among large police agencies. Instead of live assessors sitting across from candidates during the oral board, the candidate faces a tablet. The tablet reads the question. The tablet records the answer. Assessors review and score those recordings later, against a fixed set of criteria.
I have not seen it happen yet, but I expect the next step is having AI grade the candidate's recorded responses. This would be the ultimate in cost savings, and would let an agency claim a perfectly fair process, one where no human is present to show bias based on a candidate's appearance, speech, or anything else.
While the prospect of a completely automated promotional process sounds impersonal, we have to prepare for the things we cannot control and focus on what we can. No matter how much automation an agency adds, the answers do not change. A question about a personnel problem or a controversial use of force still demands the same answer it always has. Get the content right and you are still in the game.
What changes is the room. The challenge for tomorrow's candidates will not be command presence or steadying their nerves in front of live assessors. It will be performing into a recording device that gives back no energy, no feedback, no sense of connection. The process will only measure whether your answers are correct. How well you deliver them will likely be of little concern.
The room is changing. The answers are not. Prepare for both.
This piece first ran in The Edge, my newsletter for law enforcement professionals. Subscribers get it first.
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