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MAHONING COUNTY Sheriff releases recruitment advertisement on social media
YOUNGSTOWN
A new Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office recruiting advertisement could help hiring keep pace with staffing losses, officials said.
Sheriff Jerry Greene said his department loses, on average, about 20 officers a year to retirement, disability or other law-enforcement agencies offering better pay or benefits.
The new commercial, produced locally for $6,045 and released Monday, will target millennials on social media, he said.
“Our hiring will be continuous because we are losing officers as fast or faster than we are able to hire,” he told The Vindicator. “We are going to make a concentrated effort on all the areas of social media with this video focusing on millennial employees.”
The 1-minute, 25-second spot features actual county deputies in action – on road and boat patrol, in the county jail, at active crime scenes, handling drug dogs – each turning to the camera to say, “Join our team.” On-screen text reads, “Now hiring at competitive wages.”
Greene said he learned his office’s starting wages are the lowest among sheriff’s departments in Ohio’s top 20 most-populated areas, just behind Cuyahoga County. In a new, tentative agreement with the police union, deputies’ starting pay would go from $14.68 an hour to $17. That agreement has yet to be ratified, he said.
The ad was shot over the course of two days, during each featured deputy’s shift and produced by Casey Malone of Youngstown.
Greene said the department is considering purchasing airtime to run the ad, but acknowledged it’s expensive and it may not even reach the target audience.
“The standard way to advertise and reach out isn’t what it used to be,” he said. “We are looking more at Instagram, Twitter, Facebook ... trying to show in a sort of neat way all of the different aspects of my agency and what we’re all about.”
To apply, visit MahoningSheriff.com.