Sterling PD — a recruitment site that actually recruits.

The problem — a department fishing in an empty pond.

Sterling PD was averaging four qualified candidates per recruiting cycle on an old PDF-driven site that nobody finished filling out. The job is hard enough; the path to the job shouldn't be. Their old site treated applicants like they already worked there.

How we thought about it.

We didn't start with a homepage. We started with a person, a 23-year-old who just got out of the academy, lives 40 minutes away, and has three other departments on the table. What does that person need to feel by minute two? Trust. Specificity. A clear next step that doesn't ask for a resume before they've even seen the salary.

So the structure flipped. Pay, benefits, and shift schedule moved to the top of the page. The application became a conversation: a five-question form that auto-routes to the recruiting sergeant via email, no portal, no login, no friction.

What shipped.

A custom WordPress theme. Five core pages: Why Sterling, Pay & Benefits, Process, Officer stories, Apply. A short application form that emails the recruiter directly and copies the candidate. Local SEO for "police jobs near Sterling IL" and surrounding counties. A staging site the chief and the recruiting sergeant could review without us in the room.

We had more applicants in the first month than we'd had in the previous quarter. The form alone changed how we work.

— Recruiting Sergeant, Sterling PD

The numbers.

• 4.6× applications per cycle vs. prior site
• 62% form completion rate (was 11%)
• 1.2s median page load on 4G mobile