Scaling Public Safety Recruiting with the National Testing Network

We dig into how a continuous recruiting pipeline and a tight partnership with National Testing Network turn applicant volume into vetted hires without burning out staff. Greg Hyde shares how virtual interviews, faster backgrounds, and candidate-first processes cut months off hiring timelines.

• why a Safeguard–NTN alliance scales end-to-end hiring
• how to manage high-volume pipelines without chaos
• why capping tests and start–stop recruiting backfire
• making recruiting continuous and mobile-first
• virtual oral boards and remote proctoring at scale
• compressing backgrounds from months to weeks
• balancing speed, rigor, and candidate experience
• lessons from private-sector recruiting applied to policing
• the role of SMEs and former chiefs in fair assessments
• what AI and technology change over the next decade

Safeguard Recruiting is owned and operated by first responders, and it is a public safety recruiting firm with a proven recruiting system that staffs agencies across the country. 

Reach out today for a free consultation and learn about our guarantee that will increase the number of candidates for your agency. 

Transcript

Why Partner With NTN

Travis Yates 0:00

Welcome back to the show. I'm so excited you're here today. I have Doug Larson once again with us, the COO of Safeguard Recruiting. And today we're interviewing one of our Alliance members, the National Testing Network, NTN. And we're interviewing Greg Hyde, who's the chief experience officer there at National Testing Network. And we'll get into what Greg had to say in a minute. But Doug, let's talk first about NTN because some of the folks listening may be familiar with NTN. And what NTN does is they do testing and background checks for agencies. That's something, Doug, that we clearly don't want to do. We want to bring you a ton of applicants. But what NTN does is they take those applicants and they can get them through your processes much quicker, i.e., the very labor-intensive one, which is backgrounds and testing. So uh just give us your quick thoughts on NTN because we worked over the winter with this partnership, Doug, and uh we love the fact that we get to sort of work hand in hand with them and their clients know who we are and our clients know who they are. In fact, we have many clients that are already using them. Let's hear your thoughts about NTN and how that conversation went

How The Partnership Works

Travis Yates 1:06

down.

Doug Larsen 1:06

Yeah, NTN's a great platform. I get excited that we are able to work a partnership out with them because we come across them a lot. We have the same clients in a number of places. We can help each other out, and we can have a seamless transition between what we're doing and what they're doing. And in the end, it helps the departments.

Travis Yates 1:23

And when we succeed, they succeed, and when they succeed, we succeed because they need applicants and candidates to test or do background checks, right? And and so, and we need to be able to provide our clients with end-to-end recruiting if they desire. And so sometimes we talk to our clients and and they're used to doing all the recruiting, and so we say, you know what, we can take some of that load off you. You can still do your recruiting, but we're a forced multiplier. If you got a hundred applicants last month, we can help you get 300 or 400 because they're wanting high quality. Well, then a lot of our clients get frustrated because when that volume increases, Doug, well, they're not set up to do all those background checks, they're not set up to do all that testing. That's where we can pass them along to NTN and and vice versa. If NTN's talking to a client and they said, you know what, we need more applications, we need more testing, they can pass them upstream to us. So if you're out there listening or watching and you're just you don't you're just running out of time or you don't have the expertise, I would just tell you obviously we're known for what we do, which is you want to get 10 10x,

Introducing Greg Hyde

Travis Yates 2:29

15x on applications, come on over. We're going to increase your applications tremendously. But then if you need help down the line with those additional applicants, NTN is the answer, are they not?

Doug Larsen 2:40

Oh, they are. I mean, it's and and they do a great job with that and making sure the person is qualified meeting the department's specifications. So we love the partnership, it works well together, and everybody benefits from it.

Travis Yates 2:55

Well, I love the conversation with Greg. So without further ado, Doug and I are going to be done for the day, but you need to listen to what Greg Hyde has to say. So here he is, Greg Hyde, the Chief Experience Officer with National Testing Network. Enjoy the conversation. Well, it's an incredible honor to have Greg Hyde on the show today. He's the Chief Experience Officer at National Testing Network. They are great in alliance with what we do. We love them because they're bringing recruiting of all aspects to even our clients and others. And Greg, it's so great to have you here today, man. How are you doing? I'm great. Thank you, Travis.

Greg Hyde 3:33

Good to see you.

Travis Yates 3:34

So, Greg, you are uh you're sort of all things NTM. Uh, you've uh you obviously focus on public safety recruiting, but your background uh is really

Greg’s Recruiting Background

Travis Yates 3:44

recruiting for private organizations. So kind of tell us how how you kind of got to where you are today.

Greg Hyde 3:49

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So uh just out of college, I I joined an organization called Vault Information Sciences, and uh they're a contract staffing, recruitment, process outsourcing, direct placement staffing firm nationally. And I worked in that organization for 11 years. So I started out as a recruiter, so in the seat, recruiting folks, uh, high-end, heavy level uh high transaction recruitment. And uh from there I got into the sales side of things. So I really started learning more about the processes that organizations were going through to recruit and retain candidates. Uh so uh engaged with a lot of um large organizations such as uh Adidas, Freightliner, Columbia Sportswear, um, and again looking at it big flux of candidates coming in and then dropping off. And so you'd have to really get accustomed to um large recruitment processes, uh lean recruitment processes, driving heavy volumes of candidates through a short period of time to be able to meet those staffing needs.

Travis Yates 4:53

So I did that for no, it's it's so interesting because I think a lot of people listening to this may go, well, we don't have that problem in law enforcement with large groups of candidates, but that's actually what Safeguard Recruiting and NTN does. No, if you hire us, especially

Managing High-Volume Candidate Pipelines

Travis Yates 5:10

a combination of us, because we are the candidate pipeline, we bring thousands and thousands of candidates to agencies. On your end, you can help filter them and do background checks on them and the testing process on them. Because what we saw early on, Greg, is is we would hire someone would come on and they were really used to not having a lot of candidates. And so once they came on, and you've probably seen this as well, they couldn't handle the volume. Like they were using whiteboards and emails, and they couldn't handle the volume, which of course we we we both offer software to help with that. And but it's it's it's but we actually have lost clients because of the volume, because if they got so overwhelmed, and I have to imagine you're hearing the same thing over there at NTN, Greg, where where you've got to talk to them and go, listen, you're gonna have an increase in candidates or applicants. This is sort of how you navigate this, because quite frankly, law enforcement hasn't really been used to that in recent years.

Greg Hyde 6:01

Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah, it's been very slim dickens for a lot of years. And and we do we do have clients who will cap uh their testing processes. Now, that's not a recommendation that we put into place. It's not a best practice by any means. Um be a great problem to have, wouldn't it?

Travis Yates 6:16

Oh, yeah, we got too much.

Greg Hyde 6:19

Exactly. And it is, it's it's interesting because organizations will cap that. Um, but the the the the gem is that if we if we can process all of those candidates quickly, effectively, get them through and provide the department with a list of folks who

Capacity Limits And Capped Testing

Greg Hyde 6:36

are best suited to work in this industry, then why not open it up to everybody out there? Why not keep your recruitment processes open year-round, which is one of the best practices we always recommend.

Travis Yates 6:46

Yeah, I am surprised by the number of uh departments and even some of our clients that have these periods of recruiting, then they just stop in the periods. And part of that is processing, they've got to get time to do you know all the background checks and all the all the oral board testing, all the and which is why what we offer can be so helpful. Because uh and I think that's interesting, Greg, because literally I'll just you know, we're offering a service that law enforcement used to do all by themselves. Yes, but law enforcement's not really built to do what we do because recruiting, as you know, and you're an expert at it, you've been doing it for large companies, it's a really high-level skill. And the way law enforcement does is people come into recruiting, they stay a couple years and they get transferred out or promoted out, they go to something else, and the new recruiters come in. That makes it really difficult to do this at a high level, doesn't it?

Greg Hyde 7:37

It does, it really does. Yeah, and when when the the words that come into my mind when you say high level, I think of team. We can't do this without a

Keep Recruiting Open Year-Round

Greg Hyde 7:46

big team. And and a lot of law enforcement agencies don't have a team. They've got a chief, they've got you know command staff, but those folks are busy running their day-to-day operations. When you partner with organizations like Safeguard Recruiting and National Testing Network, you've got a massive team helping to process all those candidates while you while while the chiefs and the and the command staff and the personnel continue with their day-to-day operations and keep the department running. So it doesn't become a distraction, uh, instead, it becomes something really exciting because we can actually produce high-level candidates in a short amount of time and fill those seats with good quality people.

Travis Yates 8:22

And I have to think, Greg, you came from the private industry that has known this for a long time. Like if you work for Apple, you're not making Apple phones and recruiting at the same time, or you don't put temporary, I mean, they just hire professional recruiters. And so that's what you did for for 11 years. You probably were shocked when you came over to law enforcement and found out that, oh, this isn't really the case here. Kind of express your thoughts about that when you first hit this space.

Greg Hyde 8:47

It was incredible.

Travis Yates 8:48

It was a huge that's a great word, incredible. Yeah, it's a good word to use.

Greg Hyde 8:52

Absolutely floored. I was floored to actually hear and and uh we're seeing this trend shift. But you know, I've been with National Testing Network 17 years now. And when I first came over, um, you know, you'd have organizations that would put out an RFP for a testing process that wouldn't repeat itself for eight more years. So you'd

Law Enforcement’s Rotating Recruiters Problem

Greg Hyde 9:12

have one testing process in eight years, and and you're working through that list that's six, seven years old to fill your your your seats. Um, so it just doesn't work. It just doesn't align with constant, you know, pipe filling a pipeline, consistently filling the pipeline. Um, you you just can't do that if you're starting and stopping and starting and stopping. And we saw that a lot with organizations when I first started.

Travis Yates 9:36

Yeah, and one thing that we we can get we tend to get frustrated about, and I bet you do too, is is we'll have a lot of success with a client and they're getting fully staffed, and they go, okay, we don't need it anymore. And we're like, no, no, no, no. You need what you just said, you need a constant pipeline because it's a six to 12 month process to usually get officers through a process. They got to go to an academy, they got to go to field training. So, I mean, a department may be 18 or 24 months out from putting that applicant on the streets by their own. So you need a constant pipeline of people. And uh, I just think that they're not because what happens in between, let's say you're short staff and it's taking you 18 months to staff up, you're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime and stressing cops out by having to, you know, because they're still having to fill the beats. And so uh that's we we constantly talk to clients about that. And and and just to be frank, law enforcement is kind of traditional and they don't like to change very much. That's sort of like that in a lot of professions. And we and have you have you had any luck? And I know we're sensing the tide turning as

Building A Bigger Team Through Partners

Travis Yates 10:41

well. You know, law enforcement at one time did their own policy. Now we have companies we outsource it too. Law enforcement one time did their own media relations. Now, all the times we outsource that. So we're starting to see a little bit of a trend because once people see, oh, I don't have to worry about this, we can just get the applicants and and we can do what we specialize in, which is law enforcement. So we're seeing that, but uh it's it's slow rolling. But you're seeing that more and more, aren't you?

Greg Hyde 11:06

It is, yeah. Yeah, we're seeing it more and more. The trend has become more and more. Hey, let's leverage a partner, let's look at resources that we just don't have access to. And it's it's becoming more and more affordable, too. You know, our systems and our programs are really affordable when you look at it and look at the the um the value on the back end that you're getting when you partner with our organizations. It's it's it's something that when we're talking to potential new clients, it's delightful, but they're constantly going off. Oh, I can do this now. Oh, I've got resources backing me to find the right people or to process candidates from end to end. You know, so it is becoming more and more common to have organizations that say, Yeah, I can't handle this, so you guys take it.

Travis Yates 11:45

And so much of their success can just come in processes, Greg. Like we're not just talking about you got to spend a bunch of money doing advertising or marketing. No, if you can streamline your processes, because the end candidate, they're not going to be in the mood to wait several months for you to contact them. You know, uh, we have a we have a generation now that, you know, if they go through the drive-thru and don't

Culture Shock Moving From Private To Public

Travis Yates 12:05

get their food in three minutes, they get upset. And so it's the same way with applications. You know, about 85% of all applications uh worldwide are coming through mobile devices. And so uh so we're constantly talking to our clients about streamlining processes, streamlining processes, which is technology, which is communication, which is customer service. And you guys have you guys do that very well. Are are you sort of having those same conversations about processes? And how have you seen them transition from old archaic processes to what we're trying to get them to do today?

Greg Hyde 12:34

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So um, this is a great, uh, great question, good topic. Uh, technology and process are going hand in hand right now, right? So a lot of what we talk about when we talk about our process is you know, process, let's keep this open, continuous, keep the pipeline flowing. But how do we process candidates quickly? Because that's the the big value add, the value proposition is not just finding the right people, but how do we do it quickly? And so we've leveraged technology in ways that a lot of our industry peers have not yet. Um, and that is through a lot of virtual programs. So COVID actually opened the door for this whole industry to shift um their mindset. So chiefs who are, you know, in that in the mindset of I've got to do it this way, it's been this way for 10, 20, 30 years. All of

The Cost Of Start-Stop Hiring

Greg Hyde 13:22

a sudden now we're able to do it this way, and we're able to do it securely through video format. And and uh, you know, there's there's different programs out there that we can uh you know utilize to screen candidates much, much more effectively uh than in the past, like online interviews, you know, virtual interviews. So there's a lot of things that are taking place right now in the industry that's actually when you talk about the process, just fully, fully streamlining, but also overhauling what everybody had you know accepted as the norm, is now very, like we said, it's it's it's very archaic. It's holding people back. And you mentioned that candidates will drop out of the process. So when we built this company, um we really looked at the candidate experience. How do we make this candidate focused, candidate-centric? Well, the best thing that we can do for a candidate is process them smoothly and efficiently and quickly so they can start their career. And so that's what we really focused on, especially in the last five years after COVID, is how do we use technology to really hone in on who the best candidates are, but get them delivered to those clients as quickly as possible.

Travis Yates 14:29

Yeah, we see the same thing. We if we have a high candidate dropout rate, we know for a fact because usually we have these initial meetings with clients just like you guys do, pretty intensive meetings, and they'll start telling us their percentages and dropout rates, and we usually know immediately, okay, there's something wrong on the front end of this process, it's it's they're waiting six days to contact them at the first contact, or the application requires you to go to a desktop and to do this and to do that. And so once we start smoothing that out, uh, you know, just implementing technology alone, we've seen a 2x increase in actual applications. You guys have similar rates.

Adoption Of Outsourced Expertise

Travis Yates 15:03

And the one thing we do, Greg, as soon as we get a pipeline of candidates coming in, interested people, yeah, and and getting them to the application, we're immediately then talking to them about hey, listen, uh, are you doing the oral boards? Because that's a lot of time. You're having to get a committee together, it's only on certain days. NTN, and we have clients that are doing it right now, it can be totally virtual, totally online. A candidate can can see your department, apply for your department, do the interview with your department on this little device. And by the way, that's what these candidates are on 90% of their day right now. And so once they do that, Greg, uh it's pretty amazing. They can even get proctored exams and virtual exams uh through you as well. And so you're right, when you say end-to-end, that's why I love uh us always talking and working together and sending clients your way, because we can offer a frustrated department a hands-off approach to end-to-end, they're getting high-quality applicants at the end of the door that they get to sort of go through.

Greg Hyde 16:06

Yeah, yeah. And we're the only organization out there that's doing that right now, is from job posting all the way through to psychological

Process, Speed, And Candidate Experience

Greg Hyde 16:12

evaluations, even promotional assessments. We're looking at the future, you know, leadership teams and how to assess those candidates from going from the entry-level ranks up to the leadership ranks. And so I'm I will use an example of how technology and just processes have a direct impact on clients. Uh, you know, a lot of clients' um background investigations when they're driven and done in-house, they take anywhere from two to four months to complete. Ours are done for law enforcement in six weeks. So imagine a candidate waiting three, four months trying to get through their background investigation, sometimes six months on the long end. And we can shed that all the way down to six weeks. So the the um one of the metrics we track annually is our candidate satisfaction levels. And annually, consistently, we're right around a 98% candidate satisfaction level with our process. And so, just like you guys, processing candidates faster, engaging with them, really taking an investment in every transaction, every candidate, they know that that they are important in this process. And they know that as soon as you know we can get them through, they'll have that career opportunity. So their their satisfactions level are really, really high, especially with what we've been doing with the new technologies.

Travis Yates 17:26

And what I love about us, what I love about you, Greg, is is you have so many people in your organization that were former law enforcement, right? Because there's a certain language when you speak to these agencies. I mean, I think they're sometimes scared off at first because they're like, oh, I'm speaking to another marketing agency or I'm speaking to this. No, no, I think both of our companies do a really good job of speaking the language of law enforcement. And that's that's the feedback that we get. I know you get it as well. And you guys are doing so many things at a high level, Greg. As you said, you're doing things that most people aren't. And just to be frank with our audience, we have no interest in testing and background checks and the stuff you

Virtual Interviews And Testing

Travis Yates 18:01

do. That's why we love working with you and send people your way because we we really find it uh to us, it's a prideful thing for an agency to contact us and say, hey, we got 50 applicants last year. And then we get to say, can you handle 500? And that's what we do for our agencies, right? And so we want to stay in that lane because we're really good at that lane, and you guys are really good at what you do, and we love to pass them on, but there's a lot happening. What do you see the future going? What do you see the future in both of our services in the next five or 10 years?

Greg Hyde 18:31

Well, I think like harmonious relationships, like the one that we've got, is is part of that future. It's leveraging the best of the best in the industry to then provide those services to the agencies that are looking for support. Um, I think as we we continue to look at technology, AI is obviously going to play a factor and a role in what we do. It's already having an impact. Um, and I honestly think that the the teams that we have will continue to build, develop, and grow what we're doing, continue to refine, expand, and enhance what we already put into place. Like you mentioned, we've got law enforcement folks working in our teams. We we partner with subject matter experts, we call them senior field consultants across the country. And they're really our eyes and our ears. They're the ones telling us what's happening out there, what

Mobile-First Applications And Dropoffs

Greg Hyde 19:18

to be looking for, how to support agencies. And so it again, that's a harmonious partnership, right? We've got this organized uh subject matter expert that can provide us with information that myself coming from private industry, I just you know, I'm not tied in like those folks are. And so that's why folks like I understand that with uh retired Chief Green earlier this week. And those guys, they're the you know, and and and and those leaders, they're the ones that can really help continue to take this industry to the next level and involve it.

Travis Yates 19:48

Greg, what you're doing is outstanding. I and whether you want to admit it or not, you've been there 17 years. So much of the work you've done is why NTN is so successful. It's why we're trying to both build as both companies to build safer communities through staffing up our public safety agency. So I can't thank you enough. I can't thank our alliance enough. If people want to contact you, how can they do that?

Greg Hyde 20:09

Absolutely. Yeah, thank you very much, Travis. It's sales at national testing network.com. So that's how you want to get a hold of us, and that'll direct you to the right folks. And again, we really appreciate the opportunity to be on the podcast today to share some of our best practices and experiences and uh again look forward to continuing the partnership and working closely together. So thank you.

Travis Yates 20:28

Greg Hyde, National Testing Network. Thank you for being here. And if you've been watching and you've been listening, thank you so much, and we'll see you next time.