We want her job!
Carrying out search warrants, drug busts, showing up in court… it’s all in a day’s work for Constable Natalie Heem.
Name: Natalie Heem
Age: 25
Q. How did you get into a career with NZ Police?
A. I had always wanted to be a Nurse or Police Officer. I really wanted a job where I could help people. When I first started college and looked into joining the NZ Police, you had to be at least 21 to sign up. I didn’t want to wait that long, so I decided to look at becoming a nurse. When I was 7th form it was just luck that the NZ Police did a pilot scheme to recruit 100 young people between 18-22 years. I was fortunate to be one of those young people.
Q. Is there such a thing as a typical day?
A. Definitely not! You never know what’s going to happen when you get to work. Some days you’re running around on the street, some days you’re behind a desk and some days you’re in Court. No case or incident is ever exactly the same as another. It’s that kind of variety that most people join for.
Q. Tell us about your new job in South Auckland, what will that involve?
A. My new role will be in the Tactical Crime Unit. It involves following up leads for historic crimes such as burglaries, drugs etc and then carrying out search warrants to apprehend offenders. It will be my 7th role in the NZ Police - you can see how no day is ever the same.
Q. Where to after that?
A. I don’t have a career plan. I keep trying different roles and once I get good at them or feel like I know that role well, I’ll move onto something else.
There’s so many more roles that I don’t even know about so I will just wait and see. There are university and internal papers for Sergeants and CIB (detectives). So I’ll carry on completing them and see where it takes me.
Q. What’s the best thing about your job?
A. The people I work with. It’s great going to work and having great friends as colleagues. There is very rarely a day when I don’t want to go to work. I love getting to meet new people within the job and the community.
Q. Any downsides?
A. Every career has its down side. I guess mine would be the shift work. I missed out a lot on social and family events because of shift work. It was especially hard since I
joined so young. You have to be prepared to work around the clock and give up weekends.
Q. What kind of people make great cops?
A. You need to be a real people person. Confident, but not arrogant and a team player. Not afraid to get your hands dirty and have common sense.
To train as a cop, you’ll need to be 18 years of age or older when you graduate, be fit and a quick thinker. To see how you’d go, take the test for your chance to win an 8G iPod.
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