Police recruiting has changed. Candidates do not “find” departments the way they used to. They compare agencies the way consumers compare brands: fast, mobile-first, and heavily influenced by what shows up in Google, on social platforms, and now inside AI-powered search results.
That reality makes website optimization a recruiting issue, not an IT project.
A recruiting website is your 24/7 recruiter.
Every police department says they want quality applicants, but the departments that consistently win the recruiting battle do one thing better than the rest: they remove friction.
If a candidate cannot quickly answer basic questions like pay, benefits, take-home cars, schedule, training, and how to start the process, they bounce. And in recruiting, “bounce” means they go to the next department.
Academic research backs this up. Studies on recruiting websites have found that how a recruitment site is structured and how usable it feels can directly shape perceptions of the organization and increase (or decrease) organizational attractiveness.
In other words, the website experience can influence whether someone even wants to pursue you as an employer.
That matters for policing because you are not just hiring a worker. You are asking someone to commit to a lifestyle, a culture, and a risk profile most people will never accept.
Your website has to earn trust quickly.
SEO is no longer enough: AI optimization is now part of recruiting
Traditional search engine optimization still matters. But recruiting websites are now being “read” and summarized by AI systems that generate answers for candidates before they ever click a link.
That includes Google AI Overviews and other AI-assisted search experiences, Voice search assistants, Chatbots that pull structured answers from public web pages, and AI tools candidates use to compare agencies.
AI optimization (sometimes called “AEO,” answer engine optimization) is about making your department easy for machines to understand and cite accurately, and after auditing hundreds of public safety recruiting websites, most are failing in this area.
Optimizing a Recruiting Website for AI
- Make your recruiting facts machine-readable. Your most important recruiting information should be easy to “lift” into short, accurate answers. Write it plainly. Avoid burying critical numbers inside PDFs or graphics. AI systems struggle with that.
- Use structured data (Schema) so AI can interpret your pages. Structured data is code that labels what your content actually is (organization, job posting, FAQ, contact info). It helps search engines and AI systems interpret and reuse your information correctly.
- Build an FAQ section designed for AI answers. If you want your page to “win” the answer box (and AI summaries), you need question-and-answer formatting that is clear and direct.
Examples that perform well:
“How long is the academy?”
“What disqualifies you from being hired?”
“Can I apply with tattoos?”
“What happens after I submit my interest form?”
“Do you pay for the academy?”
Then answer each one in 2–4 short sentences.
- Optimize for speed, especially on mobile. Candidates are not sitting at a desktop computer, carefully reading your site. They are on a phone at work, on break, or late at night. If your pages load slowly, candidates leave, and your recruiting funnel dies quietly.
- Make your “conversion” obvious on every page. Your site should never make a candidate hunt for the next step.
- Publish content that answers “comparison” questions. AI search is built around comparisons. If you are not publishing answers, you are letting someone else define you.
- Track what AI and search engines send you. You cannot improve what you do not measure.
A police recruiting website is not a brochure. It is an operational tool. If your site is slow, confusing, or hard for AI to interpret, you are losing candidates you never even knew visited. But when your site is fast, clear, mobile-first, and structured for AI visibility, you create a simple advantage over every department that still treats recruiting like it is 2005.
And in today’s recruiting climate, small advantages are everything.
Our client sites are built for AI, and we routinely monitor the ever-changing SEO best practices. Our clients don’t have to worry about losing candidates due to their website, and neither should you.
Reach out for a free review of your existing website.
Source:
Williamson, I. O., Lepak, D. P., & King, J. (2003). Recruitment website orientation and perceived website usability influence organizational attractiveness.
