Math Skills Required for Security Guard Jobs
Although no formal educational requirements are necessary to land security guard jobs, there are basic skills that will be measured and tested in applicants for these jobs to determine how fit they are for the job. Both the job applicant’s physical and mental abilities are evaluated before they are hired to become security guards.
One of these important basic skills is mathematics. Basic mathematical abilities are required to be able to land a job as a security guard. Those who are not good in geometry, algebra, and trigonometry do not have to worry. Most of the time, all that is required is knowledge of basic arithmetic as well as other basic skills like counting, measuring, and converting. All these are tackled in security guard courses offered either on a short-term certificate course or as part of a two-year associate degree course.
Elementary as it might seem, number concepts such as reading and writing numbers, whole numbers, fractions, and percentages as well as operations like rounding off, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing whole numbers are tackled in security guard courses. These mathematical concepts and operations are applied to security guard tasks like logging in information about goods, property, or money in their watch and making incidence reports among others. The following gives a short description of the kind of math skills that are necessary for particular security guard jobs:
- Counting skills – security guards handling petty cash accounts would need money-counting skills to keep track of funds in their possession. Those who are assigned in warehouses might also have to record quantities that are brought in and out of the building they are watching and make an updated tally of how much goods are in storage at any given time.
- Measuring skills – some security job assignments require guards to make various measurements. This may be hourly temperatures in controlled storage facilities, odometer readings for freight and transportation services, or fuel consumption in factories or manufacturing facilities. Security guards would have to learn how to make readings using instruments like thermometers, odometers, and liquid or gas gauges. There are times when they also have to learn how to convert these readings in to the required measurement system, such as converting a Celsius reading into a Fahrenheit reading.
- Estimating skills – this is another important mathematical skill especially for security guards assigned in armored trucks or in banks. Security guards are often required to make estimates as to the value of goods damaged or stolen from the facilities that they are guarding. Estimating time and distance are also important skills for security guards who might be required to recreate or retrace a timeline in an accident or crime report prior to investigation by the police.
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