On November 14, Ben Haiman, executive director, Professional Development Bureau of  the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., led a webinar, “Best Practices in Police Recruitment: How the Metropolitan Police Department Continues to Thrive in a Challenging Environment,” sponsored by IPMA-HR’s Assessment Services Department. Following are some of the highlights from Haiman’s talk. IPMA-HR members can access the full archived webinar through our Webinar Library.

• The MPD needed to move candidates along faster. Haiman said that the number of handoffs of an application caused serious delays. One of their primary principles moving into the new process was how to get candidates from point A to B faster and more efficiently. In an effort to increase the pool of people considering the profession, the modified application process starts with an online application that now asks four questions: first name, last name, phone number and email address. As soon as someone says they’re interested, they target them with emails.
• The MPD has taken their hiring process from 18 months to 3-4 months, reducing both time and labor.
• Prospect Day serves multiple purposes: what used to take 16 weeks, now takes one day. Everything from the written exam to preliminary screening with investigators is handled in just one day.
• Their recruiting and HR divisions are separate – recruiting takes care of quantity, HR takes care of quality. This method reduces the likelihood that the demand for quantity reduces the quality.
• You need to first understand who your customers are: Who are you trying to recruit, who are you currently recruiting, and where is the issue between the two. Then you need to figure out where the applicants are and understand the demographics of different social media platforms. For example, in the MPD’s most recent round of hiring, 59% heard of the job openings from an online source, and only 1% heard about it from a job fair.

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