You’re wanted by Sault Police

The Sault Ste. Marie Police Service wants to get the word out they are in recruiting mode for new officers and civilian employees.

“With our succession planning going forward, we’re anticipating, with retirements happening in the next couple of years (a need for), potentially between 15 and 20 officers and about eight to 10 civilian positions (to be filled),” said Tina Caruso, Sault Police human resources supervisor, speaking to SooToday Wednesday.

Anticipated retirements among officers include all ranks, Caruso said (with the exception of Sault Police Chief Hugh Stevenson, who came on board as chief in June).

Deputy Chief Sean Sparling announced Aug. 9 he will retire Feb. 1, 2019.

The Sault Police Service is authorized to have 135 officers and 51 civilian employees (including Special Constables, some of whom go on to become regular constables).

“A lot of times there’ve been candidates who want to be hired as police officers but there were no openings, no one retired. We would’ve loved to hire them but there wasn’t the opportunity and that 135 remained static. But now, the chief and the deputy and Tina have identified moving forward there are going to be some holes in that 135, and now members of the public can come and have a good opportunity at filling them,” said Joe Trudeau, a retired Sault Police Sergeant who still serves as applicant recruiter/investigator.

“It’s a shame when somebody says ‘I didn’t know.’”

And, Sault Police want people to know now.  

“Just getting this process started and continuing from beginning to end takes some time. We must have a pool of constables ready to go so when we’re ready and we want to recruit officers once retirements start happening, then they need to be ready to be sent to OPC (Ontario Police College, in Aylmer, Ontario, for a gruelling 13-week course, followed by a one-year probationary period after being sworn in as a constable), so we want to kick off this recruitment process right now so we have a good pool to pull from,” Caruso said.

“It’s a long process. Applicants should be taking a look at our local website and you’ll see that recruitment, from application stage to hopefully the person getting employment, it’s a long road,” Trudeau said.

“Most people we hire have a post-secondary education. They might not all necessarily graduate from police-related education, most do, but we’ve also hired folks who have sociology or psychology degrees, teachers, a mental health background and training, people with a wide variety of post-secondary education. It’s not a cookie-cutter process to hire them,” Trudeau stated.

“When we recruit, when we start evaluating the applications, we look at the education, work experience and volunteer work and community involvement. We put all that together and then those candidates would move into the next stage in the recruitment process. It’s not just education,” Caruso emphasized.

“Policing in general is based on your life experiences. The more you have, the better you’re able to interact and service the public with more empathy,” Trudeau said.

Applicants are thinned out as the recruitment process goes along, Trudeau said, as some applicants will not have as much education/work experience/volunteer work as others.

From there, several more applicants fall off the list if they do not pass what Trudeau described as “a fairly intense behavioural interview.”

Background checks are done of course, and some applicants don’t clear those checks if they’ve failed to disclose certain information, whether knowingly or unknowingly (such as information relating to drug use or other illegal behaviour), Trudeau said.

Psychological assessment is another part of the mix.

“We’re really hoping the message gets out to the community that if you’re interested and if you believe you have the knowledge, skills and ability to get through it, then get your paperwork in,” Trudeau said.

It’s also crucially important applicants maintain a valid ‘Certificate of Results’ during the process.

“A lot of times a lot of our candidates miss the opportunity because their Certificate of Results has expired and they can’t move on in the process until they are active and validated,” Caruso said.

“The Police Service should represent the community...we’re very conscious of the community being multicultural, of gender, we try very hard to represent who’s out in the public at large. If the staffing of the police could mirror our community at large that would be ideal,” Trudeau said.

Individuals from all communities are welcome to apply, and Sault Police have indeed hired experienced officers from other centres in the past, but it doesn’t hurt to be a Saultite. 

“Generally they all have connections to Sault Ste. Marie,” Trudeau said.

“We’ve had direction from past Sault Police Services Boards that because it’s hard for younger people to find jobs in the Sault, that we should really focus on trying to make sure we employ young people from Sault Ste. Marie, in Sault Ste. Marie. We look for a strong community tie,” Trudeau said.

Don’t be scared off by the long, demanding recruitment and training process though, Trudeau said.

“It’s been a very rewarding career for me. It certainly is worth it. I’m very lucky.”

There are approximately 40 civilians currently working for Sault Police, Caruso said.

When it comes to civilian hirings, Caruso said those positions are posted internally first, pulling from current part-time relief staff, before going external, with successful applicants trained in-house.

“They cover all different positions in the organization, including our 911 dispatchers,” Caruso said.

If civilian positions are posted externally, they are posted on the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service website, with Employment Solutions at 421 Bay St. assisting police as a third party entity with pre-employment typing and transcription testing.

For more information, Tina Caruso, Sault Police human resources supervisor, may be contacted at (705) 949-6300 ext. 327 or by email at [email protected]