“We hire the best possible people for the career. A good candidate is driven by a sense of community, compassion, leadership, and service to helping others. We’re looking for those with the right motivations, the right reasons to choose a policing career,” says Staff Sergeant Rocky Druar with the EPS Recruit Selection Unit (RSU). “To reach potential candidates, we wanted to highlight what it takes and where a policing career can take you. It’s a very rewarding career with so much variety.”
Prior to the launch of this campaign, RSU reviewed feedback from internal and external stakeholders to gain a better understanding of what citizens wanted to see of their police service, highlighting the need for more diversification in qualified candidates. From a recruitment perspective, the feedback also showed a need to increase public awareness around the application process, recruiting programs and the career benefits. EPS increasingly seeks to target recruitment activities across the diverse communities it serves, highlighting paths for community members to be part of EPS.
“EPS provides service to everyone; our hiring approach and messaging reflects that. Our officers are diverse, compassionate, skilled, helpful and so much more,” says Druar. "We know this is a challenging recruitment environment. There are factors like the pandemic that have challenged front-line workers across many career areas and impacted our recruitment.”
“Our goal is to increase interest in a policing career with EPS, it’s imperative that we retain high hiring standards that reflect our expectations of new recruits, and that we simultaneously meet our goals of delivering a service that meets the expectations of our community. Our process is designed to hire quality people and our recruitment campaign allows all those interested to begin their process with EPS,” says Druar.
In 2022, EPS plans to hire 100 new recruits, and another 108 in 2023, including an Experienced Officers class of up to 10 members with policing backgrounds. This demand paces hiring requirements to match attrition rates of current members retiring or leaving their policing career.
Individuals interested in a policing career are encouraged to visit the new EPS recruitment website at newEPSrecruits.ca to learn more.