Stories That Hurt: Losing Great Police Officer Applicants

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Wanna know how we lost a two-time officer of the year who is a community standout and the face of a police agency on a simple ride along?  I’ve got the story that will change the way you think about this major step in your police hiring process...keep reading! 👀

Hey everyone, it’s Tom Sye your Police Marketing FTO, and this week I’m ripping the band-aid off of an old wound here to tell you about how my agency lost out on an amazing Police Officer candidate and how you can learn from the changes we made to ensure that never happened again. 🔐 

Now this story goes back six or seven years but is still very much relevant to the landscape of police recruiting here in 2025.  Like many agencies, we’ve had a ride along as a step in our hiring process for just about as long as I can remember and certainly for the past eleven years that I’ve been involved in recruiting.  🚓 

Probably similar to exactly what you do, we have all of our applicants ride an entire shift with one of our officers so they can see what policing in our city is like, ask any questions they may have, and really get a good feel for the position they are seeking.  Really simple procedure with the candidate reaching out to our patrol scheduler and getting set up for the date and time that works best for them with whoever’s available.  Easy peasy. 👐

Then, this happened…

And it changed everything about our thinking, or lack thereof, in regard to candidate ride alongs... 🧠 

My background partner at time, Michele was working an extraordinary female candidate and one that we both loved from the first moment we saw her at police testing, I mean she had it all.  She was physically fit, had a magnetic personality, super intelligent, and had this aura about her that you just knew she was going to be a fantastic Police Officer…I know you know exactly what I’m talking about…you’ve seen it before…the kind of applicant where the heavens open up and {ahhh} this is the one, right? 😇

She breezed through the initial testing, and we instantly moved her into backgrounds to get her going as she had already started the process with another agency, and we knew we had to catch up quick if we were gonna get her. 💨

We tagged teamed the whole thing.  Michele doing the background interview while I was doing all of the records checks…Michele verifying references and me former employers.  I mean we really hit the gas on everything, got caught up to the other agency and actually passed them in very short order. ✈️

Everything was going great.  The candidate was digging our agency, was really buying into Glendale and even mentioned several times how she was souring on the other agency and was considering just pulling out of their process….everything was perfect.  💪 

As we were approaching a Conditional Offer with her, we had one step to go…the ride along.  No problem, right, everyone loves those. 👌

Fast forward a couple of days...

And our awesome candidate was now nonresponsive.  😳

When Michele finally got her on the phone, she learned that during the ride along, the officer she was assigned to, while friendly towards her, bad mouthed our agency for the entire shift and told her that as a female she would hate working for us because we didn’t respect females and should go elsewhere.  Turns out, this officer was going through some hard times with our agency and wasn’t exactly the best representative of what we were all about.  Disaster. 😩

Michele was able to convince her right then in that moment to stay in the process but that only lasted about a week before she withdrew saying she was too nervous that she wouldn’t like it here and had to go with the other agency who hired her about a month later. 😑

In the six or seven years since, she’s gone on to win officer of the year twice for their agency, has multiple incredibly positive news stories written about her for the work she does in the community, and has been used I don’t know how many times in recruiting and advertising materials that are surely gaining attention.  Man, it still hurts. 😢

So, what did we do to fix it?  Three quick things…and you can do the same to make sure this never happens to you either...  👇 

Want to hang on to more Police Officer Applicants?1.  Create a Ride Along list/team

We eliminated the ride with anybody/everybody thing and created a list of people we knew were in a good place in their careers.  We started with Field Training Officers and worked out from there looking for really positive people who were not only solid at what they did but also wanted to help with our recruiting efforts and showcase both our agency and its people. 🤩

2.  Got intentional about who riders go with

We took a really in-depth look at our applicants and then tried to match them with someone similar to them.  Maybe they grew up in the same neighborhood, or came from a related industry of prior work, had a comparable family situation, went to the same high school or college, anything that would allow the two to make a connection and get started off on the right foot. 🧲

3.  Contact the Officer before the ride

The last thing we did was reach out to the officer prior to the Ride Along to tell them about the candidate. What we liked about them, any concerns we had, where else they were applying, and anything else noteworthy that could help them make a great first impression for our agency. 💝

The result?  Haven’t lost a single rider immediately after a Ride Along since. 🙌

In fact, to this day and because of our system in place, many of our applicants rave about the officers they ride with and cite them as major influencers in their decision to choose our agency. 👍

This system works and if you are tired of losing people to other agencies, you should put it in place immediately.  Let me know how things improve once you do.  🚀

If this one step has been eye opening for you, imagine what you would learn in an entire police recruiting course!  The Road to Better Recruiting is open right now and is the only recruiting course on the planet made for police recruiters by a police recruiter and will teach you the same exact mindset, direction, and strategies, just like this one, that I’ve used for the past decade plus so you can start winning with recruiting! 👮‍♂️👮‍♀️👮‍♂️👮‍♀️👮‍♂️👮‍♀️

Check it out now on my website by visiting forcopstraining.com/rtbr and take control of your police recruiting!

Have a friend at another agency who really needs to hear this story?  Share this blog with them so they can learn too!  The future of our profession will thank you later. 🤝

Have more questions about police recruiting, marketing, or anything else you're struggling with? Don't hesitate to reach out...I’m always here to help. 🙏

Until next week my Police Marketing Squad, happy recruiting! 😃

Tom

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👋 I’m Tom Sye, your Police Marketing FTO. I founded ‘For Cops’ Training to teach Police Departments how to attract more qualified candidates through the same tried and tested methods I’ve used for the past ten years at my own department to keep up with turnover and stay ahead of vacancies.

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