Philip

Philip studied Modern History and International Relations at the University of Reading before joining Thames Valley Police (TVP). He has worked for TVP for 27 years in several departments and is currently a Detective Chief Inspector.

Phil, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I work for Thames Valley Police, and I am a Detective Chief Inspector and I currently work within the counterterrorism field. I have previously worked as the senior investigating officer for homicide, kidnap and extortion and within force CID (Crime Investigation Department), and very different things such as public order, traffic, all within the one force.

Why did you decide to become a mentor with THRIVE?

The majority of my time in Thames Valley Police has been spent in Oxfordshire and I have not really come back to Reading other than to work on specific cases. Once I joined counterterrorism, we are based more locally to here, so that was a big element in it. I think there is a real legacy that, I am coming to the end of my service and it just felt like a reason to give something back to people who were just considering it as a career option.

How did you start down your own career path?

In my O level year I did a career placement with Durham Constabulary, which is my local force at home. I've always been interested in policing and I also wanted to be in the military, and going in to sixth form my solution to that was to hedge my bets and join the Military Police.

I took myself off to the careers service and at the time there was very much a drive to increase the number of state pupils who were going through Army Officer training - in fact, I was the first person from my school to actually go to Sandhurst. I went off to the Regular Commissions Board, and it happened to be the same week that my A-level results came out and I found out whilst I was there that I had done much better in my A-levels than I had thought. I got through the Army Officer selection and out of the blue they offered me a bursary to defer my army entry for three years.

I did my entire three years here sponsored by the Army, spent time in my summer holidays with the Army but I also joined the Special Constabulary with Thames Valley Police. To cut a long story short, I got to Sandhurst and ended up getting quite a serious leg injury. I had choice of either deciding whether I wanted to come back and start again, or cutting my losses and trying something else.

Because I had a connection to the police as well, and I was actually concerned about my injury reoccurring, I decided to try the police. Because I already had a link to TVP, that was the obvious choice, and I went through the HPDS entry process as it gave me an earlier start date (High Potential Development Scheme). However I've never been on the scheme itself. That is how I ended up in TVP.

Looking back, what advice would you give yourself when starting out in your career?

Matching yourself to the personal qualities of the job and not to the qualifications. I think people who are successful and happy in a career choice tend to be people who have aligned themselves to the behaviours that are actually associated with a job, as opposed to just the qualifications required for it - if you understand the behaviours of the job, you understand highs and lows and you're probably in a better position to say that it is a long-term career.

What is your style of mentoring?

I always tell my mentees that the most important aspect is that I am the person that they can ask the questions to that they would never dare ask in a recruitment setting, because they think it will be perceived as negative or a sign of weakness. I tell the students that it is very much driven by them.

My style of mentoring is very much active listening, it is very much around trying to give them answers, trying to signpost them, not making decisions for them, not trying to do work for them, but to actually gain a resource. I think mentoring, for me, is sometimes around just being able to say, look this is off the record, I'm not a part of the process, I'm not judgemental - tell me how I can best impart the knowledge to you, tell me what it is that you want to know and I will tell you in a straight style.

What skills or knowledge do you value in a student who is looking for a graduate role?

You've really got to think through the practicalities of the job and the highs and lows of it.

I have discussed the fact that with policing particularly, it exaggerates the highs and lows - you have to feel that you can cope with the good and the bad. Too many people are seduced by salary, by branding and sometimes even by parental pressure. It's all about whether you think you can do the job day in day out for a period of time. You have got to want to get up in the morning and go to work. It isn't a case of I have got to keep going because the salary is there so I work for this company.

Life is too short to embark on a course of action which is primarily for social status or monetary gain. I don't think I could have gone through my working life with that ethos being at the forefront of my mind.

What do you hope to achieve as a mentor?

I'm not judging it in terms of how many people apply to the police. I am judging it in terms of how many people I can help to form a definitive opinion about whether the police is the right thing for them.

I will count it as a success if I have got somebody to the point that it is definitely not the job for them, as much as I will if somebody does apply. It would be great to be able to say that before I have retired that I helped somebody get in to the organisation but I think I will feel just as much satisfaction if I have worked through a process with somebody and helped them to understand that it isn't right for them.