By Tim Eberly
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — The Atlanta Police Department wants to be a brand.
Like Coca-Cola. Or McDonald’s.
Well, maybe not that big. But when people hear “Atlanta police,” the department wants them to think: I want to work there.
Times are tough for police recruiters in Atlanta and many other cities. Retirement-age baby boomers are starting to head for the door, and younger officers aren’t as likely to stay around for 30 years. The department’s not getting as many applicants from the military as it once did.
To make matters worse, recruiters for the region’s biggest and most urban police force compete with more than two dozen law enforcement agencies in the metro area.
To get a leg up, the Atlanta department’s recruitment unit is making moves. Several weeks ago, it hired an advertising agency to “brand” its image --- believed to be the first such move in the department’s history. Recruiters are also thinking local first, holding more job fairs at the police headquarters and more carefully choosing when to go out of state to recruit.
“With the nationwide competition for hiring, we wanted to look at bringing in an expert in advertising and marketing,” said Lt. Elder Dancy, who runs Atlanta’s recruitment unit of 17 officers. “We definitely felt like we had a good year last year, but we wanted to take it up to a higher level.”
In 2007 the department hired 251 new recruits, compared with 204 in 2006 and 138 in 2005. But it also lost 478 officers in those three years. With 52 vacant officer positions, the department’s goal this year is 300 new recruits. To make it happen, officials estimate they’ll need at least 4,000 applicants --- about 1,000 more than last year.
About 90 percent of applicants get weeded out during the hiring process, Dancy said. There are a host of reasons: having criminal convictions, lying to recruiters about drug use or being fired from a previous job, for instance.
Atlanta’s recruiters are about a quarter of the way to their applications goal, and Dancy hopes the ad agency, the Bernard Hodes Group, will help them get the rest of the way. The New York-based agency has an office in Atlanta and has worked with police in New York City and Phoenix.
It plans to translate aspects of Atlanta police work that attract new hires into words and images that stick in people’s minds, said Chris Rash, a regional client strategy manager for Bernard Hodes Group.
“If you’re considering a career in law enforcement in Atlanta, you’ve got a lot of opportunities,” Rash said. “What we’re trying to do is position the Atlanta Police Department as the first choice in law enforcement in Atlanta.”
The department’s sales pitch varies depending on where recruits live.
If they’re in the Northeast, recruiters chat about warm weather and the lower cost of living.
In Georgia, recruiters stress that Atlanta’s department is the biggest in the state and has specialty units such as a SWAT team and mounted patrol. Officers can get in the thick of things fast, they tell prospects.
“You’re going to put more bad guys in jail here because there’s more crime,” said Officer Cliff Payne, a recruiter for 10 years.
New York, Ohio and Florida are fertile territory, but Atlanta’s recruiters haven’t found success in western states such as California and Arizona.
Police departments “pay really well out there,” Payne said. “And a lot of people just like it out there.”
New Atlanta police officers start out somewhere around $40,000, depending on their education level.
Sgt. Melvin Mitchell, who has spent the past year in recruitment, has a comeback for recruits who frown at the starting wages.
A former football teammate in college got a sweet corporate job, he recalls, but later his company was bought out and he got laid off. The friend burned through his retirement savings and recently hired on with a local sheriff’s department so he can have a pension.
“And that’s what I like to sell --- the endgame,” Mitchell said of the department’s pension, which can be as much as 80 percent of average salary for the last three years.
The new ad firm has talked about drawing out-of-state applicants with modern techniques, such as virtual-reality job fairs, Dancy said. Rather than traveling to cities such as Toledo or Buffalo to find recruits, the police could have people fill out applications online and have live Web chats with recruiters.
Until then, the recruiters will keep doing it the old-fashioned way.
Last week, Atlanta police held fairs on back-to-back days at the Ponce de Leon Avenue headquarters. Recruiters used to have fairs there once or twice each year. This month they’re hosting five and considering doing the same next month, Dancy said.
The recruiters put an emphasis on local recruiting a couple of years ago after noticing that some officers from out of state were returning home to be near their support systems.
Recruiters also set up shop at local job expos, colleges and military bases, but the fairs bring in the bulk of applicants.
Jason Ferraro, 32, was one of 47 people who showed up last Friday to interview. He’s an emergency medical technician in Danbury, Conn., and has tried to get a job with the local Police Department for several years.
“It’s just always been this thing inside of me,” Ferraro said. “I’ve always been fascinated by the Police Department.”
But Ferraro said Danbury police have tons of applicants and few job openings. He believes he’s been passed over because of an incident that led to him leaving a job as a mail carrier with Danbury’s post office. To avoid getting fired, Ferraro quit when supervisors found out he had taken it upon himself to stop delivering some ad fliers to homes that didn’t use them.
Ferraro learned Atlanta was hiring through the Internet and flew down for the fair.
He said he told recruiters about his past, and they’ve encouraged him to continue seeking the job. He made it through initial screening and is waiting to hear how he did on a written exam. If he passed, he’ll move on to a background check.
Ferraro said he and his wife, who have a baby, are leaning toward a move south if he gets an offer.
“I’ve never done anything so spontaneous in my life,” he said.
Atlanta police can’t only count on job fairs, though.
Recruiters keep an eye out for people with police potential even when they’re off-duty.
Several months ago, Mitchell went to a local shopping mall for a new pair of size-14 boots.
The store didn’t have them in stock, but the clerk went online, found the pair and had them shipped to Mitchell’s house.
She might have what it takes, Mitchell thought.
He pulled out his card and invited her to a recruiting fair.
She came.
So far, she’s passed the written test, and the recruiters are doing a background check on her, Mitchell said.
Copyright 2008 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution