Guaranteed a job?

[Cameron]

Hey everybody,

This is probably a tremendously dumb question, but if I am honored with an acceptance to the Academy, and make it through training, am I guaranteed a job when I graduate? I remember during our state's various budget crises that there were some news stories about Academy grads not being guaranteed a job.

Hope everyone is enjoying the last of their Thanksgiving weekend!

Sincerely,

Cameron

[HwyChaser]

When you arrive at the academy, you have already been hired. The pink slips that were handed out to those cadets were basically possible layoff notices (that never occurred). They were already hired, however they were the bottom of the bucket, with the least amount of sonority, so they were the first to receive them.

So, to answer your question. If you go to the academy you already have a job with the CHP. The challenging part is to keep it during your training.

[lomotor]

Cameron,

Yes, once you are accepted to the accademy you have a job. CHP is different in that you get paid while at the academy and yes you even get overtime while there. Other agencies hire their officers but most have already put themselves through POST or an allied academy. CHP is an all in one package and so as long as you pass your tests and make it off break in and through your probation period, you will have a rewarding career.

[Cameron]

Highway Chaser and LoMotor- Thanks, I appreciate the reply! That makes perfect sense. Hope you guys have a good rest of the week.

-Cameron

[Your Mentor]

Cameron,
There was a brief period a couple years back where some new field officers were sent notices that they could be layed off and the cadets we had at the time were included. We were receiving hundreds of phone calls from allied agencies across the nation offering to hire our graduating cadets. It was a nightmare that never materialized, thank goodness. Although budget issues like that have reared their ugly heads from time to time, NO ONE has ever been layed off by the CHP. We spend too much money on training each cadet to just send them packing. Anyway, those news reports you referred to weren't entirely accurate but there was some financial problems which caused it. We ended up shutting down classes for a couple of months. Before we knew it we had a single-company class to offset retiree attrition. After that class graduated we started running classes through on the normal schedule.

[retchp]

My ID # was 8656. I got hired in 1974...CTC IV-74. After that it took me five years to get ANY seniority on the department because of a hiring freeze. The first real 8700 ID numbers have about five years less time on the job than me. So I was at the bottom of the list in seniority for around five years and basically locked into my office since you need seniority to transfer.
Rumors of a layoff were rampant during those times. It never happened. Suddenly the department was faced with the fact that a group of officers called 'the expansion troops', folks with IDs in the range of 3500 through about 6000 who had been hired during a doubling of the patrol's strength in the 1960's were going to be retiring in droves. So the response was to begin hiring in a frenzy once again. Double classes. Large classes etc.. Now I began to get seniority rapidly. Prior to that time even with seven to ten years on the job I was always the junior or near junior officer in any squad I was in.
Like YourMentor mentioned, when they are trying not to hire, the department can't even keep up with attrition rates of retirees. When you get large groups of folks who all came on in a short period of time retiring, which happens from time to time, due to this "fits and starts" budget related hiring process, it becomes a real problem for the department.
I just wanted to give some historical perspective here and to let folks know that it is pretty much how things have always been.
The bottleneck seems to be at the background check part of the process and I don't really know what if anything can be done about that. Even in the olden days it took me several years and four attempts to finally get it together enough to get by everything and get hired and through the Academy and my year of probation.
Once that happens, you have literally grabbed the Brass Ring of police jobs. So hang in there and be very patient. It is definitely worth it.