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Met Police DHEP Recruitment 2024

Hey! just wanted to make this thread for anyone applying for the detective scheme for the Met Police. Has anyone heard back?/how is everyone getting with the application process?

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Original post by ellieemitchell1
Hey! just wanted to make this thread for anyone applying for the detective scheme for the Met Police. Has anyone heard back?/how is everyone getting with the application process?


Helloo! I have my DC bolt-on booked in Feb, so currently preparing for that. How about yourself?
Original post by Wunderbarr
Helloo! I have my DC bolt-on booked in Feb, so currently preparing for that. How about yourself?

Hey! i’ve only completed the first competency interview and passed just waiting to hear back about the next online assessments. Good luck!
Hi everyone - I'm not sure if anyone will see this but I'm just wondering what degrees you have done? I know it is any degree but I'm just wondering if it is best to do one related to crime etc.??
Reply 4
Original post by avaamaysteer
Hi everyone - I'm not sure if anyone will see this but I'm just wondering what degrees you have done? I know it is any degree but I'm just wondering if it is best to do one related to crime etc.??

It makes no difference in any practical sense. A law degree will help you a little bit, but that's it. Criminology doesn't help you.

My advice would be to take the degree that gives you options outside policing if you have a change of mind or if its only going to be a short career. If you originally intended to read History - don't change that plan because of policing.
Reply 5
Original post by avaamaysteer
Hi everyone - I'm not sure if anyone will see this but I'm just wondering what degrees you have done? I know it is any degree but I'm just wondering if it is best to do one related to crime etc.??

Hey there! I have been on some Q&A sessions with serving officers that are part of the process and they said a degree in criminology might help, but it won't be as important as it may seem, since you will learn what you need to know on the job anyway.

Ultimately, like Trinculo said, it doesn't matter which degree you take, so choose or continue the subject you find most interesting - I have an MSc in Physics and would not change it for anything in the world! :smile:
(edited 12 months ago)
Reply 6
Original post by Wunderbarr
Helloo! I have my DC bolt-on booked in Feb, so currently preparing for that. How about yourself?
Hey, how did this go? - mines next week. Little bit anxious
Original post by ellieemitchell1
Hey! just wanted to make this thread for anyone applying for the detective scheme for the Met Police. Has anyone heard back?/how is everyone getting with the application process?
It was a long process! I'm starting in April
Reply 8
Original post by noname1999
Hey, how did this go? - mines next week. Little bit anxious

Hi! I found it quite tricky with the timing and starting with the interactive exercise knocked me back a bit, but managed to recover and ended up passing onto the next stage!

We had to sign declarations saying we won't share details of what happened in each exercise, beyond what is shared by the Met. themselves, but I'd advise you to keep your focus on each exercise and don't dwell on the previous one as that is an easy way to trip up and lose time.

It's not supposed to be easy, so if you do come out of it feeling awful, then that's fine as long as you tried your best :smile:
Reply 9
Congratulations, you must be so relieved! How long did it take for you to find out youd passed?
Original post by noname1999
Congratulations, you must be so relieved! How long did it take for you to find out youd passed?

Yeah was mega relieved! They say usually within 3 working days. I did my test on a Friday and heard back the next Tuesday morning.

Best of luck for your test this week! Feel free to DM me...
Original post by avaamaysteer
Hi everyone - I'm not sure if anyone will see this but I'm just wondering what degrees you have done? I know it is any degree but I'm just wondering if it is best to do one related to crime etc.??
hey i’m sure a crime degree would help but it’s not necessary i think. I currently do a crime degree and it is helpful!
Original post by noname1999
Hey, how did this go? - mines next week. Little bit anxious
how did yours go? i have mine tomorrow
Original post by UnknownHarman
It was a long process! I'm starting in April
when did you first apply?
Original post by ellieemitchell1
when did you first apply?

It was around last November
Do you guys know if a friend of the family would be considering as a close friend for character reference? They work in a professional capacity
Reply 16
I recently completed my online assessment centre. Anyone know how long of a wait it is for results?
Original post by Eutony
I recently completed my online assessment centre. Anyone know how long of a wait it is for results?

Took about 2.5 weeks for me, but Christmas and the new year were in those weeks, so it could be shorter for you.

Two weeks after that, I booked my DC Bolt-on for one month and one week later.
Reply 18
Original post by Wunderbarr
Took about 2.5 weeks for me, but Christmas and the new year were in those weeks, so it could be shorter for you.
Two weeks after that, I booked my DC Bolt-on for one month and one week later.

It's so frustrating because MET mention 2 weeks as the waiting time to find out if you were successful or not but then when emailing them they talk about potentially waiting between 4 and 8 weeks for results.

What were you doing while waiting and what do you know about the current case regarding the MET and DHEP DC applications? There is a lot online regarding MET struggling to keep it's numbers stable for police officers in general (some attributing it to recent scandals and more).
Reply 19
Original post by Eutony
It's so frustrating because MET mention 2 weeks as the waiting time to find out if you were successful or not but then when emailing them they talk about potentially waiting between 4 and 8 weeks for results.
What were you doing while waiting and what do you know about the current case regarding the MET and DHEP DC applications? There is a lot online regarding MET struggling to keep it's numbers stable for police officers in general (some attributing it to recent scandals and more).


The issue with Met numbers is quite complex and can't be explained as easily as "recent scandals" - which I would say is probably the least significant of many factors except in how it has affected vetting (see below).

The biggest single issue with police numbers is that about 3-4 years ago the College of Policing brought in the degree requirement for new police officers which automatically excluded a very large number of applicants. The only way round this at the time was the degree apprenticeship, and even that had prerequisites and just turned off a lot of the kind of people who had been police applicants for generations. This, at a stroke cut off the supply of applicants and left forces looking to fill spaces with graduates and recent graduates. The problem with this is that in the 21st century workplace, a grad isn't generally looking for a 20 year career or a job for life - and most are looking at the police as a 5 year career before moving on. You can see where this is going - degree requirements and direct entry gets brought in, it runs for 5 years and all of a sudden you find that most of the first cohort has left for whatever reason and your recruitment drives are only replacing the people who you've previously brought in and aren't actually increasing numbers.

I won't go into a lot of the reasons why people leave, but more relevant to you is why the process takes so long. Policing process has always been slow, and anything under 9 months has always been considered exceptional. Under the circumstances, with recruiting crisis, you'd think they'd speed things up - unfortunately this has coincided with bad news stories like Sarah Everard being murdered. The automatic reaction is to increase vetting and re-vet all current officers (not that this would have had the slightest impact on that particular case). This has been implemented without increasing the size of the vetting units - so vetting is now taking much much longer and because of this, the process has slowed tremendously, with people waiting for vetting and intakes not happening until they can fill a class.

In terms of raw numbers, you will often see headlines about "more police officers than ever before". This is quite misleading. Because pretty much every government ever at both local and national level always promises "more police", the way this has been implemented is to get rid of civilian staff and have those jobs done by police officers - so where previously you might have had 1000 civilians and 4000 constables, now you might have 500 civilians and 4500 constables - but the number of police officers actually doing what you might consider "policing" hasn't changed, or if anything it has gone down. There might be more police officers on paper, but they are now doing essential jobs that were previously done by staff - for example they might be in HR or support functions, and a lot of the time in control rooms taking 999 calls.

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