For anyone looking to join a city police department, there’s no better time to look for the job than now. Major cities across the country, including New Orleans, are hiring up and offering impressive incentives for new police recruit applicants.

Here at the NOPD, we are leading the way with new and innovative ideas to attract high-quality applicants and move them through the application process quickly.

One of the most impactful incentives offered to promising NOPD applicants is our police aide program. Police aides are uniformed civilian employees who serve with us in an apprentice-style program designed to prepare them for a career as a police officer. Essentially, we will hire promising applicants before they’ve completed the recruitment application process if we believe they are likely to succeed. This gives applicants an opportunity to work within the NOPD prior to officially beginning academy training.

The NOPD has offered the police aide position to qualified candidates since early 2015, with police aides earning as much as $28,000 a year while in the position. There is no set timetable for a police aide to work in that position. They work until they are cleared to be promoted to a recruit and begin training at the academy.

Many current officers and recruits worked as police aides prior to beginning training at the academy. Jonathan Kling is one of them. The Youngstown, Ohio native served in the U.S. Army for four years, including time as a Military Police (MP) officer while stationed at Ft. Hood, Texas. After leaving the military, Kling and his wife moved to Mandeville in November 2015 to be closer to her family

Kling said his time as an MP helped him to develop a better appreciation for the role police officers hold in the community.

“I very much enjoyed the policing aspect,” he said. “I got a lot of good experience working as a patrol officer on base at Ft. Hood, and I think that’s part of what drove me to apply to NOPD.”

Kling said that when he saw that NOPD was hiring, he felt it was a great opportunity to continue his career as a law enforcement officer in a major city.

“New Orleans is an amazing city,” he said. “The culture here is awesome. Being from out of state, I felt it was a great place to truly learn about Louisiana while continuing my career in law enforcement. I really love it here.”

Kling applied to the NOPD Training Academy in February and, a month later, was offered a police aide position.

“I was talking to my background investigator, and he told me about the police aide program,” Kling said. “He told me that it’s a chance for prior military to get ahead of the game before they go to the academy and learn the culture of NOPD by working with and talking to officers about their experiences.”

Kling started as a police aide in April, working with the NOPD’s Fleet Division. He said the experience helped him gain valuable knowledge about NOPD’s operations and also helped him to make contacts with current officers and staff.

“I worked with the patrol cars, learning how they operate and maintaining them,” he said. “The supervisors there were great to work with. The camaraderie was awesome - to hear their stories of their time with NOPD and what they’ve experienced. I met some great people at headquarters who told me that if I ever needed anything to just call them. That knowledge and experience is invaluable, especially when you’re coming into the academy “

After working as a police aide for about a month, Kling was offered a spot in Class 176 in April, being promoted to a recruit that same day. He officially joined Class 176 in early May, and is set to graduate with the class later this fall.

Kling said his favorite part about living in New Orleans is learning about and experiencing the city’s unique culture.

“It’s so polite and, at the same time, very diverse,” he said. “It’s great to see how so many people from different backgrounds can come together and be so cohesive in such a big city. The department is the same way – very diverse, very welcoming and very involved in the community.”

Kling said he would highly recommend the police aide program to former military looking to join the ranks of the NOPD.

“When I got out of the Army, it was hard for me to transition from a military regimen, and I’m sure others have had difficulty as well” he said. “This program is a great help to former military in making that move and learning more about the department before they join the academy.”

Nine of the 32 current members of Recruit Class 177, which started in July, were police aides before they were hired as recruits.

For more information about the NOPD’s police aide program and other recruiting benefits for those with military experience, contact our Recruiting Division at 504-658-5575, email recruit@nola.gov or visit http://www.joinnopd.org.