The Gwinnett County Police Department is recruiting potential officers from across the country in streamlined weekend trips in order to make up a 123-officer shortage, Channel 2 Action News reports.
In addition to trips to college career fairs up and down the East Coast, the department has held recruitment weekends in cities like Rochester, New York, compressing what's usually a weeks-long process into two days.
Recruits submit applications, go through a barrage of physical fitness tests and undergo background checks during these weekends. Those evaluations would otherwise take place over multiple weeks and trips to Gwinnett County. Would-be officers still go through the same steps as they would over that longer period of time.
Gwinnett County has set its recruiting sights on Upstate New York in particular because of the lengthy civil service exam process required to become a police officer in the Empire State, the department told Channel 2.
One recent trip to Rochester yielded 54 conditional job offers, and 44 candidates are still considering taking jobs with the Gwinnett County Police Department, Channel 2 reported.
But Gwinnett County’s sights haven’t left its backyard; 38 recruits are currently working towards getting their badge at the department’s Lawrenceville training facility.
Watch Channel 2’s report:
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