You speakum truth. I was number 6 on a Kansas Bureau of Investigation and it was 300 applicants for 1 opening in Garden City (yech) 1986With the political climate the way it is in the country, law enforcement agencies are having a difficult time hiring and retaining officers. As the candidate pool shrinks, so does the likelihood of getting the best people. 25 or 30 years ago you'd have 1000+ applicants for a handful of jobs. Now the agencies can't get enough applicants to meet the recruiting goals in some cities. Some departments report over 90% of applicants fail in the screening process alone.
When I separated from the AF in the 80s I applied to the Omaha police dept. I was ranked number 3 after all the testing and interviews. None of the top 10 applicants were hired. However, people as far down as the 800s on the list were hired. That was my first exposure to affirmative action. Turned out to be a blessing, though, because I got hired by a large department in Colorado and much preferred living there to Omaha.
When I started looking to be hired by a PD and leave the sheriff's dept it was extremely difficult to get hired (mid 90s). The competition was tough and departments were very selective in hiring...because they could be. I went thru the process with probably 10 different agencies and always got washed out. Sometimes up to 2000 people would apply for 4 or 5 openings. It's certainly not that way now. Ironically, I applied to the agency that had the reputation for being the hardest to get hired by. It was a very popular dept because the pay and benefits were the best in the state. For some reason I sailed thru the application process for lateral hires (experienced and certified officers) and got hired with 4 other guys. I was the one with the least amount of experience with 10 years. Go figure.
I sat on the hiring board at that dept twice after being hired. I couldn't believe some of the things that would disqualify some very good candidates...like experimenting with weed when they were in high school 20 years earlier, or a 10 year old traffic ticket.
A Fort Worth deputy chief tried to get me an eyesight waiver because I was the highest score out of 245.