Gen X’ers evaluating Millennials at a police academy inspection.

I think it’s time to rethink the way that police agencies attempt to recruit new police officers.

Police departments across the country are having tremendous difficulty filling vacancies. As a result, many agencies are “working short,” with fewer officers on the books than are authorized, and patrol divisions understaffed, sometimes to dangerously low levels.

The reasons for this are varied and complex, and perhaps not entirely well-understood. The downward-trending public perception of law enforcement, the improving economy, difficulties with unions being able to secure favorable contracts from employers, challenges with candidates being able to pass background investigations (for a myriad of reasons), and generational differences may be contributing factors. It’s the last one on which I’d like to focus.

To be clear on my frame of reference here, I write this article from the perspective of a Gen X’er who was never recruited to be a cop. Rather, I contacted the agency I wanted to work for on my own accord, began volunteering with them as an Explorer, and then navigated the hiring process with them in 1997. I’ve been at the same department ever since, and I fully intend to retire from this same agency after 30 years on the job.

For years, police agencies have had a relatively consistent approach to recruiting, and though the individual strategies of agencies may differ, their goal has traditionally remained the same: to find candidates who will be employees for the next 20 to 30 years. After all, this makes the most financial sense, right? It can cost upwards of $100,000 or even more for an agency to recruit, hire, and train a new officer; if an agency can retain that employee for two or three decades, they’re saving those one-time costs for something else. This approach also makes sense from an experience standpoint; a veteran officer with two decades of experience under her belt, coupled with her diversity of experience that spans various assignments and specialty units, brings a wealth of knowledge, skills, and abilities to the table that a younger officer will lack.

Agencies tout benefits as part of their recruiting strategy, as well they should. But for those veteran police officers reading this article, I ask of you: how many of you actually considered retirement benefits, or even healthcare benefits, when you were an applicant? Were those things determinative on where you wanted to work? Or were you like me — most interested in having a fun, exciting job that was going to be different every day? Everything else was gravy.

The Discover Policing website, in fact, which is run by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, lists “financial stability” as one of five major benefits to a career in law enforcement. The other four? A call to serve, diversity, new challenges and opportunities, and a rich history and a bright future (see this link for more).

When I ran our recruiting team circa 2005–2006, I went to recruiting fair after recruiting fair, academy after academy, and hosted recruiting sessions at my own department. Our focus was always on selling the job as a career, a long-term marriage so to speak, and touting the financial benefits and pension formulas. This mindset continues today.

But now I wonder, are we going about this all wrong?

I’m increasingly beginning to think that we are. Today’s crop of applicants most often are so-called millennials, those who were born in the 1980s and 1990s. A 2012 study showed that the median time a millennial employee stays in a job was two years, compared to seven years for a baby boomer. They are commonly referred to as “job-hoppers.” These applicants are more tech-connected than ever before, an entire generation of digital natives who are used to a start-up culture and mentality — try something, and if it doesn’t work, scrap it, move on and try something else. When they can work in a cutting-edge private sector job that rewards innovation, discovery, and non-linear thinking, what would be the lure of a tradition-based, hierarchical, structured government job that is often mired in bureaucracy and process (see this link for more)?

Well, there’s room to hope. Millennials, more so than baby boomers, are more interested in finding a job that instills in them a sense of purpose and fulfillment (see this link for more). There’s little question that a job in law enforcement can more than meet those criteria.

Perhaps there’s a way to bridge this gap.

I would argue it has to do with how we choose to sell and market this profession. Instead of pitching our salary and long-term benefits, instead of trying to convince a 20-something that it’s worth it to join a career that demands two or three decades of service, let’s re-focus on the job itself. The fun of it. The good of it. How we can make a difference in our communities as police officers.

And instead of trying to sell a career, maybe we need to switch gears and try to sell a job, as much as it hurts me as a Gen X’er to write that.

Instead of asking for them, at the beginning, to give us 20 or 30 years of their lives, maybe we ask that they give us 3 to 5 years instead.

We ask for a short commitment instead of a long-term one. And we bank on the fact that once they’re in this line of work, once they’re out there on the street and making a difference on every shift, they’ll get hooked just like the rest of us have and choose to stay for that long career.

This would require a paradigm shift in our thinking. It would require an organizational culture, top to bottom, that is supportive of this strategy. But it just might work with getting more candidates in the door, and with any luck, turning them into long-term employees and the next generation of police leaders.