How long did it take to get hired?

[career31905]

I don't live in CA anymore, and I got accepted by a law enforcement agency outside of CA. I'm curious how long did it take for you to get hired by a law enforcement agency in CA. Based on what my friends in CA are telling me right now, they've been waiting for at least two to three years just to get a conditional offer.

[Retired96]

I came home from Vietnam on emergency leave in April 1970, while home I took the written test for LASD, the physical and oral interview and filled out a ton of paperwork all in one day, I was on a plane back to Vietnam that same night....I came home from Vietnam on a Wednesday in September, received a phone call on Friday to report to the Hall of Justice to be hired... Sworn in on Sept. 28th 1970. Total time was 6 months..... I know that is unheard of now...

[SOCAleo]

The fastest I've seen for a lateral officer (CA to CA lateral that is) 1 1/2 months. The fastest for a newbie 4 months. The average though, 4 to 6 months for a lateral and about 6 to 8 months for a new recruit.

It seems; and of course this is not a blanket statement, that the smaller departments hire much quicker. The big departments have a lot of bureaucracy in the way, which slows the process.

[SyntaxError]

I'll finish the process this Monday, I know I'll have no problem passing the last step. It took me 2 1/2 years to sign my conditional offer of employment.

[NickWa]

It took me 1 year and 3 months from apply to academy start for CHP. I applied sept 2013 and pick up day is this upcoming Monday.

[Socal89]

1 year and 9 months

[rentacop05]

I talked with one department and they said he could be done with the background process entirely in one week..including psych and medical and background....haha it was a tiny department in the bay area....

[SOCAleo]

Backgrounds really could be done in about two weeks (excluding, poly/med/psych). Pretty much what takes the most time in backgrounds is the Background Investigators workload at the time and contacting/interviewing of references, especially ex-wife's and or girlfriends etc. etc.

When I was a recruit and applying to my first agency, my background investigation took 3 weeks, however I did have a secret clearance through the military, not sure if that helped. I know agencies have to do their own backgrounds even though some recruits have clearances, but it does give the investigator more confidence in his/her investigation of you. Due to that, the process will be quicker because they may feel that they don't have to dig as deep, because the deep digging had already been done.

Even so, if all references and other contacts are easy to get a hold of and respond to the Background Investigators request for correspondence then all in all the process could be done realistically in like two weeks.