Could you imagine spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a recruiting team, advertising, and marketing to attract the best applicants for your agency only to see them jump to a competing agency during your hiring process?
First Responder Agencies understand the competitive nature of the profession and that’s why we work hard to tighten and shorten the hiring process with our clients but there is a lurking enemy that you may not have thought of.
The Application and The Test.
The Illusion of Control
The Application
While you may think a candidate is applying for your agency and you are sure they are testing for your agency, they may not be. We’ve previously discussed the destructive nature of making candidates “register” to apply for your agency but have you ever wondered why the software company is making those candidates register?
Often times, those registered applications (for your agency) are then sold to competing agencies. We found this out when a client told us they paid $20,000 for access to a list of police applicants.
“Lists” don’t work plus that’s not recruiting…It’s spamming.
That list came from the very company they were sending their own candidates to apply. If there was a worse way to waste money and hurt your own recruiting, that’s it.
Another client told us they had a similar software package and when we told them they were potentially selling the applicants we were recruiting for them, they were in disbelief. Apparenty, the company never disclosed this was what they were doing with the agency applicants.
When he went to the company to ask if their own applicants were being sold off, he never got an answer.
The Test
The same thing is happening with the testing process. An online or national test may sound like a good idea, until you find out that your applicant taking the test can easily send that test to muiltiple agencies.
We understand that not every agency can conduct their own testing or get away from software that has been embedded inside a government entity for decades but if we truly care about recruiting, it’s hard to understand why we would encourage our best talent to work somewhere else.
How It Happens
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Registration Requirements: Agencies must register and onboard into the software with access granted by the vendor.
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Candidate Input: Departments input or attract candidates through digital campaigns tied to the platform.
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Testing Network Integration: As candidates interact with digital content or begin assessments, they are added to broader “testing pools” or databases that other agencies can access.
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Cross-Agency Poaching: Other departments see and contact candidates who were initially recruited by another agency—sometimes luring them away mid-process with incentives or expedited timelines.
What started as a solution to streamline recruiting has, in practice, become a talent siphon—diverting prospects away from the very agencies doing the heavy lifting to attract them.
The Ethical and Operational Risk
For departments investing thousands—sometimes millions—into building interest, this kind of system presents not only an ethical problem but a direct threat to staffing success. It punishes proactive agencies, allowing others to harvest candidates without contributing to the outreach or branding work that attracted them in the first place.
Worse, many of these software agreements include vague language around data sharing, leaving agencies unaware that their candidate traffic is being funneled into shared pools.
What Agencies Need to Watch For
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Ask Directly About Candidate Exclusivity: Does the software vendor guarantee that your candidates will not be shared or visible to other agencies?
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Review Data Access Policies: Demand transparency on who can see, contact, or market to candidates in your system.
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Own the Relationship: Use tools that allow your team to retain full control over all candidate data, communication, and progress tracking.
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Avoid “Testing Networks” That Aren’t Yours: Some vendors frame this as a feature—but it may be a backdoor for others to access your pipeline.
The Solution
SAFEGUARD Recruiting has solved these problems for our clients and it starts with SAFEGUARD Connect, our all-in-one recruiting platform designed specifically for first responders.
SAFEGUARD Connect guarantees:
- Your candidates remain your candidates
- Tools and features that rival all other platforms on the market
- More applications
Any agency considering recruitment software should vet not only the features—but the business model behind it.
Because in this space, the wrong partner doesn’t just waste your time—it may staff someone else’s department with your candidates.
If your current sofware is helping steal your applicants, we want to help. We will onboard you immediately with SAFEGUARD Connect for free until the current vendor contract runs out.
Reach out today for a free consultation and let’s begin the process to staff your agency full.
