Case Study — Recruitment & Hiring
Philadelphia PD cuts hiring from one year to 56 days — and triples academy enrollment
How one of the nation’s largest police departments used Guardian Alliance Technologies to modernize background investigations, eliminate paper files, and deliver its second-highest academy class in the 21st century.
START ONLINE DEMOThe Situation
The Philadelphia Police Department — one of the largest in the United States — was facing a recruitment and hiring environment unlike anything in its modern history. Retirements through the Deferred Retirement Option Plan were predictable, but a newer trend was harder to absorb: officers walking away after two or three years for other professions, smaller agencies, or different lifestyle and pay structures. The department’s approved strength sits at 6,380 sworn officers. It was operating roughly 900 below that line.
Underneath the staffing pressure, the hiring engine itself was the bottleneck. Background investigations ran on paper. Candidates gathered documents in person and brought physical files to the department. Staff drove case files 45 minutes each way between offices and the police academy to collect approval signatures. The application-to-hire timeline ran roughly twelve months. By the time a qualified candidate reached an offer, many had already moved on. Of those who reached orientation, 70 percent failed to appear.
The Approach
When Captain John Walker took over academy operations in 2023, after 37 years in the department across investigations and patrol, the mandate was direct: improve the process, improve the systems, and improve the number of people moving through the academy. He partnered with Guardian Alliance Technologies to digitize the entire recruitment and background investigation workflow end-to-end.
Guardian Alliance Technologies replaced paper packets with mobile-first digital intake. Candidates now upload identity and eligibility documents — driver’s licenses, birth certificates, supporting materials — directly from their phones. Background investigators review electronically. Approval signatures move through the system in minutes rather than through a 45-minute drive between buildings. The candidate experience went from a stack of forms to a link, and the back-office burden went from a ream of paper per applicant to none.
The Results
After Guardian Alliance Technologies’ background investigation platform was deployed across the recruitment and hiring workflow:
| Metric | Before Guardian | With Guardian |
|---|---|---|
| Application-to-hire | ~12 months | 56 days |
| Academy candidates per year | 120 | 468 +300% |
| Orientation failure-to-appear | 70% | 58% −12 pts |
| Approval signatures | A 45-minute drive each way, between buildings | Routed in-system, in minutes |
| Document intake | Hand-delivered paper files | Uploaded from the candidate’s phone |
For a department managing one of the country’s most demanding hiring pipelines, the transformation isn’t only the speed — it’s the predictability. Candidates no longer disengage waiting for a year-long process to finish.
Why It Worked
The Philadelphia Police Department didn’t have a candidate problem — applications were arriving. It had a throughput problem. Every step that ran on paper, every file that had to physically travel between buildings, and every signature collected by hand stretched the gap between application and offer to a point where qualified candidates moved on before the process finished.
Guardian Alliance Technologies’ platform compressed that gap by moving document collection, investigation, and approval into a single digital workflow that candidates and investigators could work in parallel. The bottleneck shifted away from administration entirely. The remaining constraint — psychological testing availability — sits outside the hiring system and is the focus of the department’s next phase of work.
About Guardian
Technology that modernizes law enforcement hiring processes.
Guardian Alliance Technologies provides a digital background investigation platform purpose-built for law enforcement and public safety agencies. Its technology supports the hiring and background investigation process — mobile candidate intake, electronic document collection, digital pre-screening, and approval routing — replacing paper-based investigation workflows so agencies gain predictable timelines and candidates get a modern experience, while every hiring decision stays with the agency. Trusted by 1,500+ agencies across the United States.
Ready to see similar results?
Talk to Guardian about streamlining your agency’s hiring and background investigation process.
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