Experience, Skills, and Personality Traits
Military experience is a great way to fulfill experience requirements for becoming a police officer. Paid or volunteer work in a law enforcement capacity such as work in police stations, halfway houses, prisons, and organizations assisting at-risk youth are also great ways to familiarize yourself with the demands of police work.
If you hope to be a police officer, you should enjoy working with people and be able to cooperate with others. Because of the stressful nature of much police work, you must be able to think clearly, calmly, and logically during emergency situations, have a strong degree of emotional control, and be capable of detaching yourself from incidents.
Related Professions
- Airport Security Personnel
- Bail Bondsmen
- Bailiffs
- Bodyguards
- Border Patrol Agents
- Bounty Hunters
- Corrections Officers
- Court Interpreters and Translators
- Court Reporters
- Crime Analysts
- Criminal Lawyers
- Customs Officials
- Deputy U.S. Marshals
- Detectives
- Directors of Security
- Emergency Management Directors
- Emergency Medical Technicians
- Emergency Services Dispatchers
- FBI Agents
- Fire Inspectors
- Fire Investigators
- Fire Protection Engineers
- Fire Safety Directors
- Fire Safety Technicians
- Firefighters
- Fish and Game Wardens
- Forensic Experts
- Forensic Meteorologists
- Forest Fire Prevention Specialists
- Fraud Examiners, Investigators, and Analysts
- Genetic Genealogists
- Intelligence Officers
- Judges
- Lawyers
- Legal Nurse Consultants
- Legal Secretaries
- Paralegals
- Park Rangers
- Parole Officers
- Polygraph Examiners
- Process Servers
- Secret Service Special Agents
- Security Consultants
- Security Guards
- Wildland Firefighters