You might have seen them around town.. "BPD now hiring" signs almost every where you look.
It's all part of their recruitment efforts to get the best applicants possible.
And given what's going on in the nation, they want to make sure the academy graduates are ready for the job.
From street corners to fences, these bright blue banners and posters are popping up all around Bakersfield.
"What we've tried to do is basically place them in all four corners of the city," said Sgt. Gary Carruesco with the Bakersfield Police Department.
He said it's just another way of reaching out to the community, letting them know they are hiring.
"Our attrition rates are pretty high, with retirements and injuries so we're constantly looking for officers," he said.
But the application process is rigorous.
"There's defensive tactics, there's firearms training, there's ethics training, policy training..."
It'll take at least a year to go through tests, trainings and the police academy all to make sure they're hiring people who are cut out to be an officer.
"Usually you will have a couple that will quit in the first few days because they're just not expecting it to be that hard," said Carruesco.
In light of the recent officer involved shootings and the tragedy in Dallas, the department uses those events as training exercises.
"The bottom line is, we want to train people up to handle the things that are going on in our society today. We want the best trained officers and so therefore we subject them to several different scenarios."
The department is recruiting academy graduates and lateral officers. The deadline to apply is Friday, July 14th. Click here to apply.
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