Why You Shouldn’t Hire Law Enforcement Officers (Unless You Want Your Team to Get a Whole Lot Better)

Let me start with a bold statement: Hiring former law enforcement officers might be one of the worst decisions your company could make if you are not prepared for what they actually bring to the table. If you are not ready for people who take ownership without being asked, who stay calm when things fall apart, and who treat accountability as a personal standard instead of a corporate buzzword, then yes, you may want to pass on them. But if you are building a team that needs resilience, operational discipline, emotional intelligence, and leadership forged under real pressure, then you may want to look a little closer.

To the officer reading this, let’s have an honest conversation. Most law enforcement professionals transitioning into the private sector make one critical mistake: they assume their experience is self-explanatory. You have supervised teams, managed volatile situations, conducted investigations, testified in court, written reports that could withstand legal scrutiny, trained new hires, navigated internal politics, and made decisions with serious consequences. From your perspective, that should speak volumes.

The problem is that most hiring managers do not speak law enforcement.

When they see titles like Police Officer, Sergeant, Lieutenant, or Detective, they often struggle to connect those roles to business outcomes. They do not automatically understand that a Sergeant often functions as an operations manager responsible for personnel performance, scheduling, training, discipline, morale, and risk mitigation. They do not see that a Field Training Officer is essentially leading onboarding, quality control, compliance, and performance evaluation for new employees. They do not immediately connect a complex investigation with project management that involves deadlines, documentation standards, stakeholder coordination, legal exposure, and executive briefings.

That disconnect is not your fault, but it is your responsibility to bridge it.

This is where resume writing becomes strategic, not administrative. A resume is not a list of duties. It is a marketing document. Writing “responded to calls for service” or “conducted investigations” does not help a civilian employer understand your value. Instead, you should be articulating things like:

• Led X number of personnel across Y shifts, improving response times or performance metrics
• Managed high risk incidents involving multiple stakeholders while maintaining policy compliance
• Conducted complex investigations resulting in measurable outcomes such as case clearances, asset recovery, or risk reduction
• Delivered structured training programs to new hires, increasing readiness and reducing early performance issues

You have to translate tactical experience into language like operations management, compliance oversight, crisis response, team development, and risk mitigation. You have to quantify when possible. How many people did you supervise? What size jurisdiction? What type of budget, assets, or equipment were you responsible for? What changed because you were in that role?

The same goes for LinkedIn, which too many officers either ignore or misuse. LinkedIn is not a digital copy of your personnel file. It is a positioning tool. Your headline should not just say “Sergeant at XYZ Police Department.” It should communicate direction and value. Something like “Operations Leader Specializing in Risk Management and Team Performance” immediately reframes how you are perceived.

Your About section is where you control the narrative. In Beyond the Thin Blue Line, I talk about how leaving law enforcement is not just a career move. It is an identity shift. That identity shift shows up in how you present yourself. Instead of defining yourself solely by the badge, you define yourself by the problems you solve and the standards you uphold. Use that space to explain your leadership philosophy, your experience operating in high accountability environments, and what you are building toward next.

Then there is networking. Not random connection requests. Not sending your resume into the void. Strategic conversations. That means reaching out to professionals in roles you are targeting, asking informed questions, and building real relationships over time. It means commenting thoughtfully on industry content, sharing lessons learned from leadership under pressure, and demonstrating that you understand how your experience applies beyond public service.

Now let me speak to the hiring managers and executives for a moment. If you work in talent acquisition or leadership, I would challenge you to examine your assumptions. How often have you filtered out candidates because their background felt too government or not industry specific? How many times have you relied on keyword filters that automatically disqualified someone who did not use the exact phrasing your system prefers?

In doing so, you may have overlooked individuals who have already demonstrated the competencies you claim to value.

Law enforcement professionals lead under real pressure. Supervising a patrol shift is real time crisis management involving risk assessment, resource allocation, policy interpretation, documentation, and stakeholder communication. They are trained to gather information quickly, evaluate legal and ethical implications, and make decisions they must defend. In business, indecision costs revenue and credibility. In policing, it can cost lives. That decisiveness, paired with accountability, is rare.

They also understand structured organizations. They operate within policy frameworks, manage changing directives, collaborate with city officials, attorneys, federal agencies, and community leaders, and function under public scrutiny. They are accustomed to performance reviews, internal investigations, and documentation standards that leave little room for error. That level of procedural discipline translates extremely well into compliance heavy industries, operations driven environments, and leadership roles that demand steadiness.

So where does the breakdown happen? It is a language gap. Corporate hiring teams are not trained to decode law enforcement experience, and officers are not trained to frame their work in terms of operational efficiency, cost avoidance, risk reduction, or leadership development. The substance is there. The translation often is not.

For officers, the transition is not just about getting hired. It is about redefining yourself. You are stepping away from a culture, a mission, and a tight knit community. That is significant. But you are not starting over. You are redeploying. The discipline, emotional regulation, adaptability, and leadership you developed do not disappear. They become competitive advantages in a different arena.

For hiring managers, raising the bar requires intentionality. Move beyond rigid keyword filters. Ask candidates about times they led through uncertainty, improved performance, resolved internal conflict, or implemented change. Train your recruiters to identify leadership indicators, not just industry buzzwords. The best leader for your organization may not come from your direct competitor. They may come from a profession where leadership is tested daily.

Law enforcement professionals are some of the most capable and adaptable leaders in today’s workforce. But capability without effective communication leads to missed opportunities. And open roles without open minded hiring practices lead to unnecessary talent gaps. Both sides share responsibility in fixing this.

To the officer: you have spent your career running toward problems while others stepped back. You have led through chaos and carried responsibility most professionals will never experience. Now it is time to apply that same discipline to your own career strategy. Get your resume right. Build your LinkedIn intentionally. Learn how to articulate your value in business terms.

To the employer: if you are looking for leaders who are loyal, adaptable, emotionally intelligent, and mission driven, you will find them beyond the thin blue line. Just do not expect them to brag about it. That is not how they are wired. But once they learn to speak your language, and once you take the time to truly listen, you may find that hiring a former law enforcement officer was not a risk at all. It was an upgrade.

It is time to build the bridge between the badge and the boardroom.

If your company wants to bring some incredible talent to your team, please reach out to me at [email protected]. We pride ourselves in doing things differently from typical recruiting firms. We find better candidates, faster, at significantly lower rates. But.... most importantly... you will be bringing American Heroes to your team!

If you are a law enforcement officer (local, state, or federal) considering a switch to the private sector, and want to work with me on making it happen, I urge you to reach out to me as well or visit RecruitingHeroesLLC.com to learn how we can help you.

Stay safe, Heroes!

Colin