With a combined experience of over 100,000 years amongst current sworn staff and a healthy number of recruits going through the Royal NZ Police Training College, NZ Police is currently growing in both numbers and experience.
As interest in policing increases, NZ Police is launching new support initiatives which aim to help candidates through the recruitment process. One such development is an interactive online application that allows candidates to support and network with each other.
Similar to other online networking sites and forums, and applications such as Messenger, users are chatting to other aspiring recruits in their district and NZ wide. The application also enables users to set recruitment related tasks in their own personalised training calendar and access a range of resources that will assist them as they progress towards becoming a recruit.
Over 500 candidates are already using the application, all of whom have attended recruitment seminars and have been cleared to proceed with the selection process.
According to NZ Police's recruitment marketing manager, James Whitaker "Candidates are already encouraging each other, offering tips and sharing experiences and some will know each other before they actually meet in person at the police college - it's really encouraging to see." he said.
At the end of May 2007, NZ Police had 7,762 police officers in its ranks and there are now 8,084 (as at 31 May 2008). This number, which does not include new staff training at the police college, represents a growth of 322 full-time equivalent police officers (4.1%) in the last twelve months.
"We want to support candidates as much as we can; desktop coach hasn't replaced face to face support, but has enhanced it. We've looked into it and as far as we are aware, this is the first time an employer in New Zealand, or anywhere, has developed a recruitment tool of this nature. " Mr Whitaker said.
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