what are some of the tasks a communication officer does?

Question

also i know before you get hired you have to take a civil test; do you know what kind of questions are asked? thanks in advance

Answer 1

You did not state what type of dispatch center you would be interviewing for. Some agencies are a subset of the Fire Department, Police Department, Etc. If so, you would only deal with that portion of the county/city. If you work for the county or city, you will handle the public safety side along with the more mundane side such as school buses, county administrators, etc.
(To compare, I was a "county" dispatcher and spent a lot of time handling public information calls and complaints that were not LE related. My friend who worked for the next county was an employee of the Sherriff's Office and only delt with LE calls and received LE benefits. )

Typical assignments for my day went as thus:

Take calls and enter the appropriate information into the comptuter.
Assign a priority to the calls.
Give the callers medical emergency information as the policy and procedures described. (IE: CPR, basic first aid, etc.)
Dispatch calls to the appropriate agencies.
Run information through NCIC/III. (Check for wanted, Criminal Histories, VIN numbers, etc.)
Enter information into NCIC/III. (Warrants.)
Give general information out to the public.
Take complaints from the public and assign them to the appropriate agency. (Trees down, signals out, dead animals in the roadway.)

What is the most important piece of information you should ask when you receive an emergency call? Ask for the LOCATION first! (If the caller disconnects, you can at least send a car out to the location.) Next most important is a number, so you can call back if there is a problem. Third most important is what is happening. (The name of the individual is important, so I will put that fourth.)

Someone calls and says that there is a medical emergency with their child. What do you do? Ask the age of the child. There is a different need for infants, pre-teens, and adults. Adults? Yes, you will get callers panicking about their 35 year old child. (It is still their kid, no matter how old they get.)

Remain firm, fair, and consistant. You are dealing with the public. Most of the callers are scared, stressed, and have no place left to turn to. You will not always be treated with respect, however that does not mean that they harbor malice towards you.

Answer 2

Some of the tasks include but arent limited to:
Dispatching units
Locating community resources (CPS, D.V. safehouses, etc)
Organizing shift schedules(depending on the department)
Writing organization charts
Taking Emergency calls
Many other things

Civil service exams test your basic intelligence in Math, Reading, English and Logic. They arent too difficult. Expect simple to medium difficulty in all categories. good luck