The Basics of Hiring Security Guards: Who, Where, When, and How
One of the most difficult tasks for any security guard company manager or owner is finding qualified security guards. We all know that finding a warm body is easy to do, but hiring security guards that don’t upset your customers, or earn you a 30-day termination letter, is a lot more daunting. So as a security guard manager who is looking to hire the cream of the crop, what should you be doing? Well, in the same manner that your officers should be thinking about their Ws (who, what, when, where, why, and how) when they write an incident report, you should be thinking about your Ws when hiring security guards.
Who to Hire
• Candidates with a clean criminal background.
Although background checks can be a little expensive, in many states they are a requirement for officer licensing— either way, don’t skip them. There have been multimilliondollar judgments against companies that employed security guards with criminal backgrounds.
• Candidates with good interpersonal skills. Be sure to evaluate the guard’s interaction with you and your staff on the day of the interview. Are they pleasant? Do they smile? Are they clean-cut and professional? Remember that these officers will be representing you and your customer at whatever post that they are assigned. You don’t wont rude or unprofessional officers greeting your customers on a Monday morning.
• Candidates that write well. As we all know, wellwritten reports are essential in making a good impression with your customers. So ensure that your candidates have good writing skills by giving them a brief writing test. I used to use a simple picture of a burglar or something security related and ask candidates to write what they saw in less than 200 words. Needless to say I disqualified a lot of security guards from just this writing test.
• Candidates that pass a drug screen: This one is pretty self-explanatory. Whether it’s a 7 panel or a 10 panel drug screen, make sure that you test every officer prior to hire and randomly after hiring.
Where To Hire
• Security training schools. If you have your own training school and train a large number of security guards, then you are already reaping the benefits of having a large pool of candidates to choose from. If you don’t have a training school or train a ton of security guards, it would behoove you to partner with a security training school, or two, that do. They can funnel their better students to you, which can help get the types of guards that you need. That relationship is a two-way street because it also allows the school to tout their ability to get their students jobs.
• Your website. If you don’t have a way for potential employees to submit resumes to you on your website, then you are missing a huge opportunity. Your website can collect applications and resume 24/7 without much effort on your part.
• On your social media channels. There are numerous ways to use social media to help find security guard candidates. My favorite is to create social media accounts dedicated to hiring security guards. On your employment application page, tell potential candidates to follow you to be notified of open positions.
When To Hire
• All the time. Of all the lessons I have learned regarding hiring, the one that made the most impact on my organization was when to look for candidates. If you are responsible for hiring security guards, then I am sure that at one point or another in your career, you made a questionable hire because you needed someone immediately. Most of the time, those hires don’t work out and end up costing you in the long run.
After experiencing that several times, I started what I called a “continuous interviewing” program. What that meant was that our organization interviewed candidates continuously. Even when we had no positions to fill, we continued to interview. Because of continuous interviewing, we were able to identify good candidates long before we actually needed them. As a result, we found ourselves able to hire high quality officers whenever necessary. And beyond that, we were also able to reduce turnover because we were hiring the types of officers that we wanted.
How To Hire
I actually touched on the first couple of hows in the who section: background checks, writing tests, and drug screens. But beyond those basics, you should also include these two hows as well:
• Test the candidates’ technological aptitude. In recent years, security guards are being asked to use more and more technology. Consequently, it has become necessary to ensure that the guards that you are hiring are capable of using whatever technologies that they will encounter on the job. That technology might include CCTV cameras, real-time guard tour tracking, or security guard reporting software. Whatever technology your guards use, ensure your candidates are capable of mastering it.
• Be a great company. The easiest way to find quality security guards is to be the kind of company that your current guards tell their friends to apply at. Don’t forget to motivate your officers to spread the word by offering a bonus of some kind or a cash reward for every candidate that they recommend who is then hired and lasts a set amount of time. Your security guards know what it takes to do the job and have a vested interest in bringing on officers who won’t leave them working a double because of a nocall-no-show.
• Hiring security guards takes planning. Although hiring security guards quickly is much easier, in the end rushing the hiring process will cost you more than it’s worth. Hiring and placing unqualified security guards is a detriment to your company’s reputation and its financial livelihood. Take your time and develop a hiring program that will get you the high-caliber security guards that you need. In the end, careful planning in the hiring process is the only way to ensure your company’s long-term success.
Of course, once you say, “you’re hired!” that’s not the end of your employee evaluation responsibilities. So that both you and your officers have an accurate idea of how well they are performing (or not), you will need to conduct regular performance reviews.
