Jobs, hard to come by out here

[kraiford]

Hello, my name is Kyle, and I live in Southeast Michigan.

I've graduated the Washtenaw Community College Police Academy and have an Associate in Criminal Justice.

My problem is I live in Michigan and I have no road experience. A position opens up out here and you get 200+ people applying for it.

I'm 23 so I have not had as much life experience or time to put things in my past like my choppy high school work history or the couple of traffic citations. Some officers I’ve talked to tell me that before they were hired they worked reserve, never had a ticket, and had 1 or 2 steady jobs their whole lives before that. Hearing that makes me feel like I got little to no chance.

Here is my situation.

-Work history: High school was choppy, about 10 different jobs on and off, was discharged from 2 (no ethical/immoral reasons). My more current work history after high school is steady and respectable.

-I've had 4 traffic citations (damn wanting to drive small little red sporty cars) 3 of which were in high school.

-My grades during high school, again not the best. My college courses in Criminal justice are nearly all A's and B 's and my academy test scores were mostly A's and a few B's.

So overall I've shown improvement. I know all departments have to go on in making their decisions is the background and their short interaction during the interviews. I pride myself in have great communication and interaction skills. I've been commended on how well I presented myself during interviews so I'm not to worried about that. I just sometimes feel I haven’t lived enough to put certain "child'ish behaviors" behind me like a 30+ person would be able to. It's easier to say "yea in high school I was crappy at keeping a job" when you're 30 then when you just turned 23.

Any advice on better ways to come at these situations during an interview would be very helpful. I’ve talked with some officers after interviews and talked about how it went and other ways I can say things. Any help is appreciated.

And since this is the Job Center section, if any of you know anywhere in Michigan that is looking for a good officer that is eager to learn and quick to adapt, let me know :)

[bto35]

I hear ya, Minnesota is also competitive and im struggling to find a cop job here and im 35 and just graduated. Im not sure how much longer i should wait for some dept to pick me up.
You could go out of state somewhere and go through a agency academy or I'd say go in the military. I hate to say it but its alot harder if your a white male and dont have any previous LE or a military background these days. You'll get plenty of life experiance there plus prefference points on your application. You'll get to travel around and eventually obtain more life experiance. Your young so be adventurous.
I wished i would've done that route:(

good luck

[MiGuy]

Troy was just hiring and you didn't need the academy so you are already up on that. If that is still open, which I'm not sure it is, it is coming to the end of the closing. What you might want to do is look for part-time. Your not far from Pinckney, which is pretty good about hiring young officers that are in similar situations as yourself. The pay probably sucks and they are only 2 square miles, but it will activate your certification while you look for jobs. Or you can go the Oakland County or Wayne County where you will have to put time in the jail, but again your certification will be activated. If I"m not mistaken, Washtenaw may still be hiring as they were recently and you don't have to do time in the jail with your academy. Or try some Public safety places. They'll put your through the fire academy and voila, you got a job where you do both police and fire. Anyways, I'm getting out of this state for Law Enforcement but since I live in your area and go to the same school, I know some info. around here from researching it in the past. Any questions, feel free to pm me.

[SlowDownThere]

I understand that the economy in Michigan is quite bad.

Have you considered moving to a place that's growing?