Why the DC Police Is Advertising Law Enforcement Careers on the NYC Subway - Bloomberg

It looks like the wrong ad in the wrong city for the wrong crowd. But in this job market, it just might be getting something right.

Commuters in New York City who have looked up on the subway recently may have been surprised to spot a recruitment ad for Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department with a rather unexpected message.

“Gamers, foodies, techies, influencers,” it reads. “Join the next generation of D.C. Police.”

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That an out-of-state force would turn to New York’s subway to advertise jobs speaks to the reputational hit law enforcement has taken in recent years. Greater awareness of police brutality and the killing of Black Americans including George Floyd have cast a pall over the field. Just over the past two years, 315 members of the Washington’s MPD have resigned, according to spokesperson Kristen Metzger.

At the same time, the ad highlights the strange, strained state of the job market right now. Employers in traditional industries — from banking to law to apparently now law enforcement — are desperately seeking to reach younger candidates. Their outreach efforts can at times come off as painfully out-of-touch.

“Younger generations are looking for atypical job opportunities with flexibility and better work-life balance,” said Christina Eyuboglu, a marketing and communications consultant who previously worked at marketing and communications firm Adduco Communications. “It is getting harder and harder for those traditional career paths to attract younger generations.”

They need to. Pandemic-era departures tied to the “Great Resignation” and what Eyuboglu calls a “silver tsunami” of retirements are putting pressure on wages and exacerbating labor shortages across the country. According to the MPD, 165 sworn officers — ones with a badge and the authority to arrest — in the nation’s capital are eligible for retirement.

At the same time, the city’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, is trying to build up its force to 4,000 active officers. Right now it has about 3,532 sworn members and 595 professional staff, according to the MPD.

The MPD is probably not targeting only those four very specific groups — gamers, foodies, techies and influencers — mentioned in the ad, says Ben Varquez, managing director for digital marketing agency, Youth Marketing Connection. More likely, he says the force may be trying to make a broader appeal to Gen Z and millennials.

“The strategy was an approach of, ‘We are you and you are us,’ and trying to get people to see themselves in MPD,” Varquez said. But he doubts the campaign will be successful in any capacity given that “policing has a little bit of a toxic brand at the moment,” particularly in some cities.

Still, even though racial justice protests in 2020 sparked clamorous calls to defund the police, major U.S. cities including New York, Los Angeles and Washington expanded their police budgets in 2021 as crime rates rose nationally.

In the U.S. capital, mayor Bowser asked for $11 million to hire 170 police officers last year, but the city council approved $5 million for its 2022 budget, the Washington Post reported. While the MPD would not comment on the NYC subway ad specifically, spokesperson Kristen Metzger told Bloomberg that the police department “is seeking to reach Millennials, Generation Z members or those who may have never considered a career in law enforcement but have the soft skills needed to be good police officers.”

At a press conference in Washington on Friday, Washington Police Chief Robert Contee III explained that the MPD extended the department’s recruitment efforts beyond its jurisdiction because “people from all across the country are interested in becoming police here in our nation’s capital.”

“We don’t want to deny them an opportunity,” he said. “Gamers are welcome and so is every kind of person named on that ad.”

Such opportunities could be lucrative, especially compared to the average salaries of gamers and influencers, who often work gig jobs or freelance contracts. The MPD is offering a starting salary of $60,199, substantially more than New York Police Department’s $42,500. (That said, overtime is common in New York’s force and total compensation can exceed $100,000.)

The NYPD declined to comment on Washington’s attempts to recruit in their territory, but shared links and social media posts to its own recruitment page.

Metzger noted it can take months for police officers in other jurisdictions to get hired. The MPD recruits classes monthly.

“We want to attract people who want to make a difference in the community now — not wait on a list for a few years,” Metzger said.

Whether it will work remains an open question. But Eyuboglu and Police Chief Contee said the one thing the campaign has achieved is drawing attention to the force’s efforts.

“‘Calling all foodies and influencers.’ I mean that piqued somebody’s attention,” Eyuboglu said. “It gets you thinking and it certainly got us talking, right?”

— With assistance by Fola Akinnibi

source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-22/why-the-dc-police-is-advertising-law-enforcement-careers-on-the-nyc-subway

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