911 – What is Your Emergency?

Recently I applied for a position as a 911 Operator for Eastside King County. I had to submit an application, resume, cover letter and typing test. Shortly thereafter, I was notified that I qualified to move on to the next step – a day of testing. I accepted and yesterday was the day of testing.

There were eight of us. All women and they were all younger than me. We met in the lobby of Bellevue City Hall and waited for our greeter to take us upstairs at 10:00am. Our greeter explained that there would be three timed tests and that we would need to get a certain percentage of the questions correct in order to move on to the next test. I like tests. I test well.

The first test was a multi-task/split ear evaluation. We listened to a CD of a woman’s voice calling out 1) colors 2) three digits and 3) three words from a phonetic alphabet (she’d say alpha for A, bravo for B, etc.) Our task was to write out what we heard – the colors (using three character abbreviations such as blu, gre, pnk), the three digits (256, 731, 095) and the three letters (nvt, soe, vlm). Sometimes there was more than one voice and it was really hard to hear what they were saying. This test was 2.5 minutes, but it seemed a lot longer. The tests were scored and six out of eight of us passed. You needed 80% or higher and I got 89%.

The next test was a 100-question, multiple choice exam and we had one and half hours to complete it. It began with lists of addresses, social security numbers, phone numbers, alpha/number strings and there were two sets of each set of information. Our task was to determine which sets were exactly alike and which sets had slight deviations. This was harder than it sounds! There were also lists of words and we had to identify which ones were spelled incorrectly. Plus, there were sets of four sentences that we had to put in order to make a sensible paragraph. At the end of the test were customer service questions with scenarios in which we had to pick the answer that would suggest the most appropriate customer service. Not so hard. When we completed this test we were let go for a half-hour lunch break.

When we returned to the lobby at 12:45 our greeter told us that three out of six had passed. You needed 80% or higher and I got 85%.

The greeter took the three of us back upstairs for the final test. It was another 100-question, multiple choice exam and we had two hours to complete it. It had the same lists of addresses, social security numbers, phone numbers, alpha/number strings in which we had to identify the sets that were exactly alike – and again this was harder than you might expect. And it also had customer service questions. But additionally this test had scenarios that an operator might actually face and one in which we would need to determine how many fire engines or police officers to send to any given emergency. We were provided plenty of information in order to make the correct determination and I found it to be sixty questions that were solved by using logic. It was challenging, but satisfying at the same time.

The three of us finished with 15 minutes to spare. The tests were scored and we all passed. You needed 70% or higher and I got 91%.

There was more to the day and I’ll fill in the gaps. But for now I need to get to Nintendo!