Some departments have spent six and seven figures on recruiting marketing and ended up with a nicer website, a polished video, and the same staffing problem they started with. That’s not a hypothetical. It’s a documented pattern across the industry, and it’s exactly why evaluating a recruiting agency before you sign deserves the same scrutiny you’d apply to any major capital decision.
This guide walks through what to actually ask a recruiting agency before committing your budget, including the questions that separate a vendor focused on deliverables from one focused on results.
Why This Decision Deserves More Scrutiny Than It Usually Gets
Recruiting marketing contracts for law enforcement agencies are public information in most jurisdictions, and that paper trail has revealed a real problem: agencies paying large marketing firms for branding, ad placement, and video production without a corresponding improvement in applications. Industry trade coverage has documented stories at agencies of varying sizes where six-figure (and larger) recruiting marketing spends produced a better-looking website and video content, but little measurable change in qualified applicants, at least in the short term.
This doesn’t mean every marketing firm underperforms. It means “they do recruiting marketing for police departments” isn’t, by itself, a reason to sign. The questions below are what actually separate vendors who can show real outcomes from those who can only show deliverables.
Questions to Ask Before You Sign
Do you work exclusively with law enforcement, or is this one vertical among many?
A firm that also serves restaurants, retailers, and tech startups brings a different skill set than one that works only with public safety agencies. That’s not automatically disqualifying, but it changes how much law-enforcement-specific nuance (such as background investigation timelines, POST certification requirements, and lateral vs. entry-level pipelines) you should expect them to already understand.
What exactly are we paying for — deliverables or candidates?
A website and a video are deliverables. They’re often necessary, but they are not the same as a pipeline of qualified applicants. Ask directly: does this contract guarantee a specific volume of candidates, or does it guarantee a set of creative assets and ad spend with no accountability for what comes out the other end?
Is there a performance guarantee, and what does it actually cover?
If a vendor offers a guarantee, get specific about what’s guaranteed (raw applicant volume, qualified candidates, or something else?), over what time period, and what happens if they don’t meet it. A vague promise to “drive results” is not the same as a contractual commitment with a defined remedy.
Can you show us a named, verifiable result from an agency our size?
Ask for a specific, named client and a result you can verify independently, not an aggregate statistic. For example, Milwaukee’s Fire and Police Commission publicly credited Safeguard Recruiting with more than doubling the department’s police applications since the program launched in fall 2025, a claim confirmed on the record by the Commission’s own executive director, not just the vendor’s marketing materials. That’s the kind of verifiable result worth asking every vendor to match.
Does the contract lock us in regardless of performance?
Long-term contracts with no off-ramp put all the risk on your department if the partnership underperforms. Ask what happens if results fall short during the contract term, and whether you have any flexibility to adjust or exit.
Who actually has law enforcement experience on their team?
Marketing expertise and law enforcement expertise are both necessary, but they’re not the same thing. Ask who on the team has actually worked in policing, and how that experience shapes their approach versus a generic marketing playbook.
What This Looks Like at SAFEGUARD Recruiting (For Comparison)
Since this is a question every agency should be asking of any vendor, including us, here’s how we’d answer it directly:
- Exclusively law enforcement. We don’t work with restaurants or retailers. We’ve conducted hundreds of campaigns for law enforcement, and we work exclusively with public safety.
- A specific, contractual guarantee, not a vague promise. Our Recruit Pipeline tier guarantees 100 qualified candidates per month; Full Recruiting guarantees 300 per month; Total Staffing guarantees 900 per month. If we don’t hit the guaranteed number, we keep working at no additional cost until we do.
- Founders with actual law enforcement careers, not marketing executives who added policing as a vertical: our leadership includes over 100 years of law enforcement experience.
We’re not the only agency that can answer some of these questions well. We’d encourage you to ask every vendor you’re evaluating, including us, the same six questions above, and compare the actual answers, not just the pitch.
The Bottom Line
The recruiting marketing industry doesn’t have a uniform standard for what “results” means, which is exactly why your department needs to define it before signing anything. A vendor confident in their actual performance will answer these questions specifically and on the record. One that can’t, or won’t, is telling you something important before you’ve spent a dollar.
If you’d like to see how SAFEGUARD Recruiting’s guarantee and pricing tiers work in detail, book a strategy call or explore SAFEGUARD Connect to see the system behind the results.
