Police Captain Overview

There are certain skills that many police captains have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed empathy, physical stamina and good judgment.

When it comes to the most important skills required to be a police captain, we found that a lot of resumes listed 12.8% of police captains included police department, while 8.7% of resumes included crime prevention, and 7.5% of resumes included law enforcement. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.

When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the police captain job title. But what industry to start with? Most police captains actually find jobs in the government and education industries.

If you're interested in becoming a police captain, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 41.5% of police captains have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 22.8% of police captains have master's degrees. Even though most police captains have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a police captain. When we researched the most common majors for a police captain, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on police captain resumes include associate degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.

You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a police captain. In fact, many police captain jobs require experience in a role such as police officer. Meanwhile, many police captains also have previous career experience in roles such as police lieutenant or police sergeant.