Career with the guards, appearance?

jeanyMac

Hi there everyone, first post here,
Heres my post. I really want to go and apply for the guards when the next recruitment phase comes around which I believe it soon enough. I wonder if it's worth my effort trying though as I'm not exactly good looking, in fact I've been told quite the opposite by many ppl, you know the U word.

I'm physically very fit and consider myself quite intelligent. I have this feeling in my head though that if it's me against another guy the other guy will always get selected for training even if I'm clearly better than him at the important elements of selection just because of my looks.

Now I know many of you will probabely say 'it's inside what counts' that's ok and I agree but realistically speaking as far as the guards are concerned would I have a chance, I don't think I would be judged fairly during the face to face interviews paticularly, what do you think?

gogo

Welcome to boards!

jeanymac wrote:

I'm physically very fit and consider myself quite intelligent

Being fit and smart is what will get you into the guards.
You obviously have other issues regarding self esteem which may or may not hinder you, but if getting into the guards was based on looks then i think we would be living in a very strange Ireland.

The face to face interviews are basically to establish that you are not a nut case, that you want to join the guards for the right reasons and that you are a reasonably intelligent person.

You need to work on your self confidence first, if you think that the other guy is going to get a place over you, then you can be sure that they will, you have to go in thinking that you can get it or your at nothing.

So work on your self confidence and yes I'd say that you have a very good chance of getting into the guards, and when you do i have a few speeding tickets that could do with sorting out if you know what I mean.

gogo

optiplexgx270

well if you are a dog ugly bogger you are half way to getting into the gaurds.


those interview are a lot more than just getting to know you on the surface. they may try tricking you into saying something stupid like i hate those damn nigg€r blah some story about one doing some **** and guage your reaction etc. stuff like that

Cactus Col

The interviews are supposed to be structured, and are run by the civil service commission, personal bias shouldn't come into it. They score you by how you showed different attributes needed to be a Garda, eg one skill may be dealing with people, so you'd have to give an example of a situation where you showed how well you did this, what you learned, and how you can use it as a Garda.

Looks aren't supposed to come into it at all, and if you failed at interview, you could get the board members notes under freedom of information, to make sure nobody wrote down "he's not good looking enough to be a garda" .. they write something like that ... you sue.

jeanyMac

thanks for all your replies so far, I hope to get some more thoughts too, I admit I have major issues with self esteem and confidence but it's only because society in general have always treated me differently and less well than better looking people. It's kind of like a visious circle, how can I get confidence if people are always on my case?

Cactus, nobody likes to admit that they are discriminating against people for whatever reason so I don't think anyone would ever write such a thing down.