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Elly’s blog
– Psychologist, College of Policing

Name

Elly Cooper

Job role

Psychologist

Government Department

College of Policing

What does your current role involve?

I am a psychologist at the College of Policing. My role is to support my team in the design and delivery of assessment centre exercises for police officers across the country. The exercises are aimed at a range of policing ranks, from police constable to chief officer. To achieve this, I| work with a small team of psychologists and assist with various stages of the design cycle. This can include critical scenario interviews, exercise consultations and pilot events. Each stage of the design process involves collaborating with subject matter experts to ensure our exercises are valid and reliable. Once our exercises are finalised, I assist in quality assuring assessors at the assessment centres. This involves delivering assessor training and providing constructive feedback throughout the process.

What does a typical day look like for you?

I spend most of my time writing or amending exercises for our assessment centres. What this specifically involves depends on the assessment centre and the stage of the design cycle I am in. A typical day at the beginning of the design cycle starts with a brief from my higher psychologist, who outlines the topics and goals for that year’s exercise.

Using this brief, I conduct further research and create a first draft of the exercise. Once the draft is completed, I either take it to a consultation event or a pilot, where subject matter experts review and test the exercise. Based on their feedback, I make amendments to ensure the exercise is reliable, valid, and reflective of real-life policing. Throughout this process, I work closely with my higher psychologist and the wider team to ensure the changes are appropriate and fair for the candidates taking the exercise. When I am not writing, I assist with the delivery of upcoming assessment centres, which typically involves checking timetables and resources, attending candidate briefings, and setting up our online portal to assign candidates to their sessions.

What skills helped you secure your role?

The skills I learned during my undergraduate degree in psychology, along with my master’s degree in occupational and organisational psychology, gave me a broad understanding of reliability and validity. They also taught me how to analyse and record data sets and provided extensive practice in improving my research, reading, and writing skills. These skills have been particularly useful when writing assessment exercises at the college. Moreover, the selection and assessment module in my master’s program gave me a deeper understanding of how to enhance fairness, diversity, and inclusion within assessments while maintaining an evidence-based approach. Outside of psychology, my part-time jobs during university helped improve my interpersonal skills, which have been especially valuable when working with the wider team and interacting with various stakeholders at the college.

Can you describe your career journey?

My career journey has been limited as this is my first job since leaving university, so I am still early in my career. I have been in this role for almost two years (2022-2024) and have had great opportunities to apply the knowledge from my master’s degree in real-life settings. I look forward to further developing my skills and knowledge and seeing what the future holds for me in the field of occupational psychology!