Becoming a New Jersey State Trooper

This page exists to prevent a wasted application.

The New Jersey State Police is not hired through Civil Service. There is no State Trooper title in the Civil Service job specifications, no Civil Service eligibility list for it, and no Civil Service examination that leads to it. If you are working through this site looking for the trooper exam, you will not find it, because it is not here.

Where the process actually lives

Trooper recruitment is run by the Division of State Police within the Department of Law and Public Safety. They announce their own hiring cycles, run their own written and physical qualification process, and maintain their own applicant pool. The Civil Service Commission is not involved.

Go to the New Jersey State Police recruiting site directly. Nothing on this page, and nothing anywhere on this site, substitutes for their announcement.

What preparation still makes sense here

We have not verified what the State Police written examination contains, and we are not claiming otherwise. What we do know is that entry-level law enforcement hiring across New Jersey, Civil Service and State Police alike, leans on the same kind of cognitive aptitude testing: reading comprehension, situational judgment, reasoning under a time limit. The guide below is written for New Jersey's own Civil Service LEAB and is not a substitute for whatever the State Police actually gives you, but general aptitude practice of this kind is reasonable prep regardless of which agency is administering the test.

If law enforcement through Civil Service is also of interest to you, the municipal police, correctional police, and parole officer routes are real, they are competitive, and they are covered here properly.

Related: The New Jersey Law Enforcement Examination · The NJ municipal police officer exam · The New Jersey firefighter exam · All New Jersey public safety exams