How much they can hold accurately under timed pressure.
The ceiling at which their recall stays reliable, not just the ceiling at which they stop trying.
§ MEASURE / 02 · Working Memory
Most washouts
aren't about effort.
They're about capacity.
Working memory is the cognitive capacity to keep a handful of facts active in mind while you do something with them. On the floor, it's the first thing to slip under load. Telecommunicators who can't hold three details at once don't grow into the job. They quietly leave it.
§ Why it matters Dispatch is a working-memory job
Three things every shift will ask you to remember at once.
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An address while the caller is still talking.
Hold an address, a cross street, and a bystander's name. Type the first into CAD, ask the next question, and drop none of them. One missed detail, the unit lands on the wrong block.
-
The radio in one ear, the phone in the other.
Log a plate that just came back over the radio without losing the line on a live caller. The thread doesn't pause for you, and you can't ask the caller to start over.
-
A detail that matters three minutes from now.
The caller mentioned a weapon at the start. The officer asks two minutes later. Whatever else is happening, that detail has to still be there when you reach for it.
§ What it tells you Three reads on the same candidate
What you'll know about a candidate's working memory.
ReadyFirst doesn't ask candidates to rate themselves. It puts working memory under controlled load and reports back on what holds and what doesn't.
Whether accuracy holds as the load grows or quietly slips.
Two candidates can hit the same peak score and fail very differently when the room gets loud.
Whether working memory is the constraint, or something else is.
Read in the context of attention and processing speed, so the gap a candidate has is the gap you train for.
Scores are computed server-side from millisecond-precision response data, never trusted to the candidate's browser. Every candidate gets practice rounds before the scored task so first-time test-takers aren't penalized for unfamiliarity.
What you can show your CSO, your counsel, and your CIO.
Validated, not invented
Built on cognitive task families with decades of peer-reviewed evidence behind them. Your civil service analyst can defend the methodology under the SIOP Principles for the Validation and Use of Personnel Selection Procedures.
Designed to WCAG 2.1 AA
Semantic markup, keyboard navigation, screen-reader compatibility, and contrast tuned for the dispatch console. Every candidate gets the same shot at the assessment.
SAML SSO, 2FA, full audit trail
Per-organization SAML identity. 2FA on admins. Every action logged with IP, agent, and outcome. Tenant-isolated data via Postgres row-level security.
CJIS applicability statement
Pre-hire cognitive scores aren't Criminal Justice Information under FBI CJIS Security Policy. We give your CJIS Security Officer a one-page applicability statement that documents the data flow and answers the boilerplate question without forcing a full attestation.
§ Next
See what we'd have caught
in your last cohort.
30-minute call. We map your current funnel, walk you through what ReadyFirst tells you about working memory, and quote you in writing.