1.2 How Hiring Agencies Customize CritiCall

Why "The CritiCall Test" Is Actually a Different Test at Every Agency

Here is the single most important thing to understand before you ever schedule a CritiCall exam: there is no one "CritiCall test." CritiCall is better understood as a licensed module bank — a menu of up to 15 assessment modules that a hiring agency's HR office or testing coordinator selects from when they license the software from Biddle Consulting Group. One agency might administer six modules in 90 minutes; the next agency down the highway might administer eleven modules across three hours, with a completely different mix of skills tested and completely different passing scores attached to each one. Two candidates can both truthfully say "I took the CritiCall test" and have taken meaningfully different exams.

This matters enormously for how you prepare. If you spend three weeks perfecting map reading because a friend told you their agency's CritiCall was "mostly maps," and your agency doesn't administer the Map Reading/Geographic Directions module at all, that prep time produced zero test-relevant benefit. The single highest-leverage thing you can do before opening this guide's later chapters is contact your specific hiring agency's HR or recruiting office and ask exactly which CritiCall modules they administer and what score each one requires. Most agency job postings or testing-notice letters list this, but it is worth a direct phone call or email if it isn't explicit.

CritiCall 3D: Operational, Behavioral, and Situational Components

Biddle Consulting Group's current product, marketed as CritiCall 3D, bundles three distinct assessment types that agencies can license together or separately:

This is a critical scoping note for how to use this guide: this study guide teaches the Operational component only — the skills-based modules with objectively correct answers that you can genuinely study and drill. The Behavioral and Situational Judgment components measure personality fit and judgment style, not a body of knowledge, and there is no legitimate way to "study" for them the way you'd study a map-reading module; agencies use them to gauge fit, not competence, and coaching against a personality inventory can actually work against you if it produces inconsistent or transparently strategic answers. If your hiring agency licenses the full CritiCall 3D bundle, expect the Behavioral and Situational sections to feel more like an interview on paper than a test — answer honestly and consistently rather than trying to reverse-engineer a "correct" profile.

Real-World Variability: Two Agencies, Two Different Tests

Consider two illustrative hiring notices, both real in structure even though the agency names are illustrative:

• Agency A (mid-size suburban police department): Administers 7 modules — Multi-Tasking/Advanced Decision Making, Computerized Data Entry, Call Summarization 1, Map Reading, Cross Referencing, Memory Recall (Short Term), and Spelling. Requires 75% on each module and 35 WPM net typing speed. Total session: about 2 hours.
• Agency B (large county 911 consolidated communications center): Administers 12 modules, including both Call Summarization levels, both Memory Recall modules, Numerical Ability, Frequency of Information/Probability Determination, and Perceptual Ability, in addition to the modules Agency A uses. Requires 70% on most modules but 80% on Data Entry, plus 40 WPM net typing speed. Total session: nearly 3 hours.

A candidate who only prepared using Agency A's module list would walk into Agency B's test completely unprepared for Numerical Ability and Perceptual Ability items. This is exactly why Chapter 11 of this guide (Test Day, Agency Variability & Final Review) circles back to building a personalized module checklist — but the concept needs to be understood from day one, not saved for the end.

Retake Policies and Score Portability

Because each agency independently licenses and configures CritiCall, your score does not transfer between agencies. Passing CritiCall for one police department tells you nothing about whether you would pass at the county sheriff's office across town, since the module mix, passing thresholds, and typing-speed floor may all differ. Retake policies are equally agency-specific — some require a 6 to 12 month waiting period before a candidate can retest after a failed attempt, and some cap the total number of retakes within a single hiring cycle. If you fail at one agency, do not assume a blanket disqualification from public safety dispatch work broadly; confirm that specific agency's retake window, and consider applying to other agencies with their own independent CritiCall administration in the meantime.

Key Takeaways Recap

CritiCall is a customizable module bank, not a single fixed exam — module selection, passing scores, and typing minimums vary by hiring agency, and CritiCall 3D can add Behavioral and Situational Judgment components alongside the skills-based Operational modules this guide teaches.