The 3 Biggest Police Recruiting Job Posting Mistakes!

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Ready to start making job posts on social media or wondering why yours aren’t gaining any traction? Before you try one or post another one…here are the three biggest mistakes of police recruiting social media job postings...keep reading! 👀

Hey everyone, it’s Tom Sye your Police Marketing FTO, and this week, let’s talk about social media job postings and the three biggest mistakes that agencies make when creating and posting them. 💣

Look, everybody knows that the police recruiting world, especially on social media, is copycat in nature.  One agency makes a post…another sees it and says, ‘hey I wanna do that too’ and next thing you know every agency’s doing it. 👯‍♀️👯‍♀️👯‍♀️

It sure does make life easier for you that way, so I totally get why agencies do it…but before you jump on the trend train with your next social media job posting…please take these three giant mistakes into consideration…

1. Not making police recruiting job posts regularly

This is number one on my list for a reason…and trust me the gap between number one and number two is a wide one…this is that important. 💯

Any time I see an article about agencies struggling to attract applicants or someone online complaining about the same…the first thing I do is check their social media accounts and find, far more often than not, in fact it’s just about always, that I have to scroll and scroll and scroll to find a simple now hiring post if I can find one at all. ☹️

Look…much in the same way that you know the local grocery store is going to have items on sale, they still send you a mailer letting you know all about them, right?  The same thing goes for your police recruiting.  You have to tell people about your openings…often. 📣

2. Super serious faces in pictures

As a profession, we’ve gotten a lot better at this over the past year and a half or so, but we’ve still got a long way to go. 👍

Listen…it’s super simple.  Those stern, stoic faces all decked out in tactical gear are subconsciously signaling to your potential applicants something very important every time they see them…

And contrary to popular belief, no, it’s not that they’ll look cool in all of this stuff. 😳

When you post these types of pics or serious videos, what you are signaling, deep in your applicant’s mind - which is constantly seeking out and trying to differentiate between pain and pleasure, that’s the 300,000-year-old basic function of our brains after all, is that people aren’t happy when they work for you.  That’s exactly what stern faces say.  🤯

If you want to start seeing more applicants…start posting smiling faces, which equates to happiness and watch what happens. 😁

3. Too much information in the picture

This is another huge mistake that agencies make all the time, and it is 100 percent costing you applicants!  Here’s why… 🤔

Studies show you have somewhere between 2 and 5 seconds to catch the attention of a social media user.  That’s it.  When you clutter your picture up trying to squeeze every benefit, testing detail, QR code or application information into it…those human brains of ours I just talked about a minute ago say to themselves, ‘that’s too much to dissect - let’s move to the next one, huh?’. 🧠

All of that other information…yeah, it’s good…but it belongs in the caption where users expect it to be.  Move yours there and more people will start reading it.  🛋️

Now…need some more advice on creating scroll stopping social media job postings that will generate more interest in your agency? 🙋‍♂️🙋‍♀️ 

Check out my Social Media Job Posting Photo Makeover guide which will take your Police Officer job opening posts from drab to fab in four easy steps! 🤩

It’s another free learning guide available on my website: forcopstraining.com/jppm 

(job posting photo makeover)

Have a friend in recruiting whose job postings need a little work?  Share this newsletter with them so they can learn too.  Believe me…they’ll love that you shared it with them. 🤝

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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