The 90-Day Nurture That Rescues Law Enforcement Recruiting

Ghosting applicants is expensive. We open with a hard number: without timely communication, about 90% of interested candidates never take the first step. Then we show how a simple, structured nurture strategy flips the script: immediate texts and emails, clear next steps every two to three days, and a face-to-face moment that cements momentum. The result is a reliable leap past 50% engagement, even with lean recruiting teams.

Doug Larsen, CEO of Safeguard Recruiting, joins Travis Yates to unpack why the old “wait by the mailbox” model collapsed and what actually moves today’s passive candidates. We dig into automated outreach that feels human, stage-based messaging that reduces friction, and a 45- to 90-day cadence that keeps your department top of mind. Along the way, we troubleshoot the hidden killers—confusing forms, dead inboxes, slow callbacks—and share how mystery-shopping your own process can reveal quick wins.

The Cleveland PD case study anchors the strategy. Their first touchpoint is a hiring event where applicants can test, complete steps, and even receive offers. Early sign-ups lagged when messages were delayed; once the nurture sequence launched and cadence was tuned, registrations spiked, engagement crossed 50%, and event attendance surged toward a 10x improvement. Practical reminders—location, schedule, prep tips, and a direct line for questions—turned interest into action. Pair that with a responsive team on site, and conversion compounds.

We also talk about money. With an average cost per hire of $1,000, automated nurturing can beat runaway overtime and stabilize staffing faster. This is consumer-grade communication applied to public safety recruiting: clear, frequent, and useful. If your team is down officers and drowning in overtime, the fastest path forward is better conversations with the candidates already knocking.

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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. 

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Transcript

Why Nurturing Candidates Matters

Travis Yates 0:00

Welcome back to the recruiting podcast. I'm so honored that you're listening or watching today. And once again, I'll have Doug Larson, the CEO of Safeguard Recruiting, in here in a minute. But today's topic is nurturing your candidates or communicating with candidates. I know nurturing is a fancy term for us recruiters out there, but it's really just staying in contact with your candidates, why that is important. And we have a ton of data that shows this. We've had clients that will never talk to people, then we have clients that will call them almost immediately. And it is ridiculous the difference that it makes. And I know what we what we do here at Safeguard Recruiting is as soon as come someone comes in and they're interested in that agency, we immediately are texting them, we're immediately emailing them. Uh, we'll pick up the phone and calling them, or we get the department to do that. And that candidate is going to get a message every two or three days until they take their first step, whatever that may be. It could be a test, it could be a hiring event, or it could be an orientation day. And then once we get them to that first event and the recruiter is face to face with them, that's often all that it takes. And it's pretty tremendous. The data is clear.

Old Hiring Habits Meet New Reality

Travis Yates 1:14

Without nurturing, you're going to lose 90% of your candidates. Yes, I said that right. If you never communicate with someone that's expressed interest in your department, only about 10% will ever take that first step. In contrast, we're seeing numbers 50% plus with our nurturing program. So, how do you do that when hundreds of people are coming in? Doug Larson's here to talk about that. Doug Larson, here we are another week, sir. How are you doing?

Doug Larsen 1:41

Doing excellent. Thanks for having me here.

Travis Yates 1:43

Man, you know, when I talk about nurturing and communication, I'm just interested because I know you speak to a lot of clients that have don't think this is important or they don't do it. And what do you think is the reason behind that?

Doug Larsen 1:59

Well, if you look at the history of law enforcement back years ago, decades ago, you had plenty of people coming and wanting to work for your department. It wasn't an issue. You had a line of people, you could pick through the applicants, and you do it at your own pace at your own communication level. And that is what a lot of departments are used to in law enforcement. We have a we have a slow, kind of antiquated system of getting people hired on, and that just doesn't

Passive Candidates And Speed

Doug Larsen 2:27

work very well now.

Travis Yates 2:29

Yeah, and it makes sense. I mean, I know I'm old, but I I applied at my agency that I spent 30 years on. I applied in 1992, and I didn't hear anything for six months. And when I first time I heard something, I got a letter in the mail. It sounds crazy, right? But I waited by the mailbox to get the letter, and then I did everything they said from then on, and I never spoke to anybody on the phone. Uh, once he got to the background stuff, I started talking to a few people, but that was pretty much it. But today, you can't do that. You do that, that guy's gotten three or four other job offers or gal, right? And so it's changed, and it and even though it doesn't make a lot of sense for me or you because you know this was a career for us, and we would do anything it took to do the job. We're talking about the new generation of candidates or employees. It's not just hitting law enforcement a certain way, all industries have had to adapt to the new generation, and we call them passive candidates here, meaning many of the kids today, I'll call them kids, a lot of you know, people in their 20s to early 30s, they're they may not have a lifelong ambition to be in law enforcement. That's why you're seeing most major cities are down 20, 20 plus percent because they're still getting the people that want to be in law enforcement that will that will still wait and do it. But but to get fully staffed, you've got to attract the passive candidates, and you will never attract and passive just means you've got to sort of convince them to do a job, get their interest and convince them, and that's

Automating Texts And Emails

Travis Yates 3:49

where nurturing comes in, is it not?

Doug Larsen 3:51

Oh, oh, it does. You you need to show interest in the candidate right away. Lack of communication shows lack of interest on your department, and they just keep moving on. And it's very easy to move on nowadays. Everybody's carrying a phone, they've got the phone that they can access, other jobs. They so you need to communicate what right away. Now, we are able to generate, we're able to source a lot of candidates for departments that we work with. And one of our goals here is not to make their recruiters work harder, but make them more efficient and more effective. So we like to help nurture these candidates for departments, and we we automate this. I mean, you get text messages, you get emails, and it takes some of the stress out of the process. It it allows them to plan for how the process is going and what what the next steps are, what they need to do, and it keeps them engaged. It's a great way to learn about the department and feel like you're a part of that organization up front and that they care.

Travis Yates 4:50

So if I'm a client coming to you, Doug, you know, maybe because what we've seen is a lot of these departments that are down on staffing, they don't have a lot of recruiters, they've had to pull them to the road. So, you know, I know you you work with some large departments that everybody here would recognize, and they have one recruiter, two recruiters, they can't keep up with all that communication, even though they know they need to, they can't keep up. You talk about automating it, and I gotta tell you, uh, those of you that aren't familiar with it, I've seen it and it's amazing.

Fixing Broken Applicant Journeys

Travis Yates 5:15

And just to explain to the audience what it is, is as soon as they come in and express interest, this your your safeguard connect system that you give to these agencies with these campaigns, Doug, it starts automatically emailing them and texting them, and you can customize those messages to the department and you can build those messages as far out as you want. I know your standard package is 45 days, but you go as high as 90 days, meaning I may come in, but I may not be interested. But for 90 days, they're getting reminded, they're getting told about the department, they're getting told about the special units, they're getting told about the salary, they're getting told about the benefits, and it just keeps it on top of mind. And for everyone that doesn't understand this, just think about the emails you get. If you've ever signed up to a newsletter or you've bought a product, that's why that's why these companies are getting your email or getting your cell phone. They want to keep reminding you about the product. It's the same way, is it not?

Doug Larsen 6:06

No, it exactly is. And it gives a lot of information to the person, it gives a way for the communication to start so they know who they can communicate with. And the messaging changes for them where they are in the process. And so it keeps them up to date in what's going to come next, how they prepare for it, and it's successful. So the first thing, if you're having trouble getting people interested in your department, we really need to look at the communication that's going on once somebody does show interest in your department or is trying to show interest in your department, how hard are you making that on them? And what are steps we can take to minimize those issues and keep them engaged? And we we've got a great solution.

Cleveland Case Study Results

Travis Yates 6:54

Well, one of the dirty little secrets I'll sort of give away, because you make me do it sometimes, Doug, is is if somebody's willing to come on board uh with Safeguard, is you have me go in and be an applicant. Now they're never going to pick me, right? I'm too old and I'm too fat, you name it, no hair at all. But I go in and I see how hard it is to find the job, I try to apply for the job, and then I see if anyone's communicating with me. That fails a lot, and you're able to identify very early on part of the problem. Because don't get me wrong, what you're doing is amazing, but if you don't do that along with tightening up the processes, you're gonna be wasting a lot of money for nothing, right? Because you've got it, you've got to build that environment to where that candidate feels like they're cared for, like you said, pretty amazing stuff, and you help that all along the way. Now, you've got a great case study for this, and I'm gonna make you talk about it because I mean I've been I've been a part of this and I've watched this, and it's been pretty amazing. Um, you're working with Cleveland PD right now, and their first touch point is the hiring event. Some people, it's the application, some people it's the orientation, but they want to send everybody to a hiring event where they do a lot of these steps, and you used automatic communication. Talk to us about those conversions and what it did for them.

Doug Larsen 8:04

Yeah, Cleveland, man, that they're an all-star organization, their recruiting team, they they do a great job, and they want everybody to come to this hiring event because they they take a test there, they can take a physical test, they actually give job offers at this hiring event. So they drive everybody to these events, and we are finding with our nurturing program that engagement is it is high. There, it it's in the 50% of people are engaged and moving through the process through the hiring event. And it's just been amazing. And and their crew does a great job of answering anybody's questions that come in and following up with them, and they they fit right in with the automatic nurturing program, but it has been great to see how these conversion rates, because we didn't start the it right away, we gave it a couple days and it wasn't converting at all. And then we started the nurturing program, and those numbers are just they continually climb every day, and it's been a great success for them.

Travis Yates 9:12

Yeah, I remember that. We we we said, man, there's not a lot of people sign up for the event, and we tweak you tweak some of the messaging, uh you change the cadence of the messaging, and that's the important part of what you do is you're constantly monitoring it, and next thing you know, boom, it popped off. And and what's great about Cleveland, now don't get me wrong, they've they they were doing a great job before us, but it's like we said in the episode last week, it's kind of a numbers game. You can be doing all you can do, but there's only so much you can do with a couple of you, right? And so we just come on and we're we partner on top of them and give them additional people. And so they they'd had a previous hiring

Cost, ROI, And Next Steps

Travis Yates 9:45

event, and it appears based on these conversions, that you're gonna 10x uh those registrations. I mean, it goes, I mean, 10x. I mean, what it's gonna, it's it's just crazy, but but what you how you were able to accomplish that, Doug, was is this constant communication with people coming, just that you know, and I I know now you're you know, if the hiring events coming up, and you're like just letting you know, I'm just reminding you here's the address. Let me know if you have any questions. Because once again, I'm a dummy, I get a lot of those, I get a lot of those messages. I want to make sure these are these are coming out okay. And uh the engagement is pretty incredible. And that's a system that you set up within Safeguard, call it we call it Safeguard System, that it comes with Safeguard Connect and it's automatic messaging as the candidates come in. And if anybody is questioning what this is, if you ever had a kid apply for a college or you applied for a college, that automatic messaging starts coming and it never stops, right? And so you have implemented these sort of best industry practices into public safety recruiting, and the success is mind-boggling. I mean, completely mind-boggling. It drives me crazy, Doug, when I see a department that's down 200, 300, 400. I'm thinking to myself, stop, it doesn't have to be. You guys have you guys have come up with all these solutions, and and you're so solution-oriented, it's pretty exciting to be a part of. I know if if you've been paying attention to our shows or our podcast over the last year or two, we've talked about this before, but uh just to let you know, uh, it is August 2025, and we are hitting on all cylinders. I mean, people that are signing up now are getting immediate results, and I think it's because Doug, somehow you're able to make this better and better with time through the date in the campaigns you're running.

Doug Larsen 11:21

Yeah, every every campaign we run, we learn from all across the board, every department we're with. We we're always learning, we're always evolving, and we're always making it better. And we've got real numbers to back up these, these are facts. And if you follow the solution, it's gonna be very productive for you.

Travis Yates 11:39

Now, we don't like to talk about cost on here. This isn't a sales podcast or anything like that. But people may be thinking to themselves, oh my gosh, this is crazy money. Well, the truth is, no, it's not. Uh, I think the last time you showed me the data, Doug, per hire you were averaging about a thousand dollars a hire, which is insane because you think about it, if you're down, say 50 officers, you're probably in the millions a year in overtime because you have to fill the beats. That means for $50,000, you're staffed up using this system. So that's just sort of a general, general talk about what cost is, but it's just not what you think it is. And so uh pretty incredible stuff, pretty exciting. Uh, how do they reach you, Doug? How can they how can they uh you know talk to you about this and see how see if you can help or not?

Doug Larsen 12:24

Yeah, you can go direct to me if you want, Doug safeguardrecruiting.com or go through the website and fill out uh inquiry, and we'll get right back to you.

Travis Yates 12:33

Doug Larson, thanks for being here. And if you've been watching and listening, thanks for being and thanks for doing that, and we'll see you next time.