When I first became a police officer in 1997, the people around me who wanted the job actually wanted to be police officers. Maybe they had wanted it since they were kids, or maybe they came to it later, but they were working toward putting on the badge and serving the public.

Nowadays, I see a lot more people approaching it differently.

Instead of wanting the job because they want to be a police officer, some seem to want it because they don’t like the job they already have. That doesn’t mean they can’t become good officers. But there’s a difference between running toward this job and running away from another one.

Sometimes I understand exactly where “nobody wants to work anymore” comes from. I’ve had applicants miss interviews, show up completely unprepared, or seem more interested in escaping their current job than doing the one they’re applying for.

There are people with poor work ethic. There are people who don’t want hard jobs. There are people whose expectations don’t match what they’re bringing to the table. Pretending otherwise doesn’t help anybody.

But if I keep struggling to attract or keep good people, I don’t get to stop there. At some point I have to look at the job I’m offering and the kind of place I’m asking somebody to join. Sometimes the applicant pool really is the problem. Sometimes I’m part of it too.

Start with the job

When I’m hiring, I have to look at the job from the other side of the table. What does it pay? What are the hours? What does the schedule do to somebody’s family life? What are the benefits? What am I asking of them compared with other jobs they could take?

I can’t simply keep raising the pay until applicants appear. Louisville has a budget, just like every other city. Police work also comes with things I can’t make disappear. Nights, weekends, holidays, bad weather, difficult people, court, callouts, risk, and responsibility are part of the job.

But I can’t ignore the market just because some of those things are beyond my control. If somebody can make more money somewhere else with less risk and a better schedule, I need to understand what I’m asking them to give up to work here.

Maybe we can’t compete on pay. Fine.

Then I need to know what we can compete on. That might be training, opportunity, stability, a better schedule, good supervision, or simply a workplace where people are treated like adults. I’ve watched people take less money for the right job, and I’ve watched good employees leave jobs they liked because eventually the numbers stopped making sense. Pay isn’t everything. It also isn’t nothing.

The hiring process is part of the offer

A good applicant is usually looking at more than one employer. We’re evaluating them, but they’re evaluating us too. That’s why I think of a job interview as a two-way evaluation. If we take forever to respond, can’t explain the schedule, don’t know what the next step is, or leave somebody waiting weeks between simple parts of the process, we’ve already shown them something about the organization.

That doesn’t mean I rush background work or skip steps that need to be done correctly. It means I don’t confuse unnecessary delay with thoroughness.

The same goes for reputation. People talk about where they work, especially in a small community. They talk about supervisors, schedules, pay, favoritism, promotions, whether promises are kept, whether good work gets noticed, and whether management makes every day harder than it needs to be.

A recruiting post isn’t going to erase what current and former employees have been telling people for years. If I keep hearing the same criticism from different people, I don’t have to assume every word of it is true. Former employees can be wrong, bitter, or unfair. But dismissing every criticism because I don’t like the source is an easy way to protect a problem I should be looking at.

An empty position can be better than the wrong hire

None of this means I lower the standard because hiring is difficult. An empty position can hurt. In a small department, everybody feels it. Shifts get thinner, schedules get tighter, overtime goes up, and the people already there carry more of the load.

A bad hire can cost even more.

If I hire somebody who can’t make it through the academy, won’t accept correction, can’t handle pressure, or can’t be trusted with the authority that comes with the job, I haven’t solved the staffing problem. I’ve added another one. I can teach skills. I can train somebody who’s inexperienced. I can coach somebody who’s willing to listen.

It’s much harder to train somebody to care.

There are times when the available applicant pool simply isn’t good enough. I’d rather keep working 92-plus-hour weeks than settle for a hire that lacks what I’m looking for in a new officer just because it makes my life easier in the short term.

A legitimate standard doesn’t become unreasonable just because fewer people meet it. What I don’t want to do is hide behind the word “standards” so I never have to examine anything on my side.

Recruiting doesn’t stop when somebody gets hired

The person I want to keep is usually somebody another employer would be happy to hire. The employee who shows up, learns quickly, handles responsibility, solves problems, and doesn’t need constant supervision has options. If that person keeps seeing weaker employees protected, good work rewarded with more work, or no path forward, eventually they may decide to use those options.

Then management starts talking about how impossible it is to find good people while the good person they already had is filling out an application somewhere else.

Recruiting and retention are tied together because applicants aren’t only paying attention to what I promise before they take the job. They’re also paying attention to what happens after people get hired, including whether good employees stop caring or decide they’d be better off somewhere else.

So when I’m struggling to fill a position, I try to separate what I can control from what I can’t. I can’t manufacture qualified applicants. I can’t make everybody want police work. I can’t erase nights, weekends, stress, risk, or the limits of a small-town budget.

I can look at whether we’re moving too slowly, whether our standards actually connect to the job, whether the pay makes sense, whether my leadership is running people off, whether our reputation is hurting us, and whether we’re giving good employees a reason to stay.

If I’ve looked at all of that and the applicant pool is still the problem, then I can say so with a straight face. But if I keep offering the same job under the same conditions, losing the same kinds of people, and blaming everybody outside the organization, eventually I have to consider another possibility. Maybe they do want to work. They just don’t want to work for me.