Can insubordination cost me future employment.

[Giants12]

I apologize for asking this twice but hopefully someone on the job can give me a good answer. I work for NJDOC and I was written up for insubordination , I am currently appealing it. If the charge is upheld , can it cost me future employment with a police department? This would be my first write up. I'm trying to go to Newark police when the next civil service test comes around and I'm scared this will completely ruin my chances of getting hired. Thank you.

[BlueLine]

It can 100% cost you future employment. I'm not saying you would be automatically DQ'd for it, but any background investigator is going to have serious concerns about that and look deeper into it.

[MPD80]

Whether it is upheld or not doesn't matter. The fact that you were written up for insubordination is what matters. This will have to be disclosed during your background investigation, whether upheld or not. I don't know the details of this incident, but in my opinion, most PD's are going to be hesitant to hire you.

[GnarKill67]

Whether it is upheld or not doesn't matter. The fact that you were written up for insubordination is what matters. This will have to be disclosed during your background investigation, whether upheld or not. I don't know the details of this incident, but in my opinion, most PD's are going to be hesitant to hire you.

ok lets clarify something here. "insubordination" is pretty loaded in the LEO world. Now, if its sustained, yes that can hurt you. If its not sustained, either way you have to answer it. What ive learned with background checks is its not that these agencies will be hesitant to hire you, they want clarification. They want to know what happened. They want to make sure you're not going to try to cover it up during a BI. As well as to see how you are since the incident.

Sometimes, supervisors will throw the pen around and take something & misconstrue it into insubordination. A good BI takes the facts and goes from there. As long as youre truthful, show no patterns of the same behavior, and are able to be thorough and come clean about it, I would say that the uphill battle may not be as uphill as you think. Just be cautiously optimistic.