Barnegat Police Are Searching For Recruits

The Barnegat Police Department is hoping to draw the best and the brightest to fill its law enforcement ranks.

The nationally accredited department will soon be conducting entrance testing to establish a list of candidates to fill Patrol Officer positions.

Lieutenant Keith Germain says potential candidates must first meet certain qualifications with the biggest being educational. "We require either a four year degree or a associates degree with two years of work experience. We also have a provision for people who served in the military for four years where if they have 30 college credits they're eligible."

Germain says the selection process also includes a written test, physical fitness test, and oral interview. However, he says they lose about half the applicants during the physical fitness test. "The test itself is consistent of basic exercises, push ups, pull ups, a mile run but the way that we do it, in that they don't get any break between exercises, so they're essentially just going maximum output all the way through."

Germain says the reason why the physical fitness portion is so rigorous, is because the Ocean County Police Academy's physical training program is one of the most difficult in the State and if candidates aren't in excellent physical condition, there's a good chance they won't make it through the police academy.

Candidates who successfully complete those portions of the selection process and are being considered for employment will undergo medical and psychological evaluation as well as a thorough background check prior to being offered employment.

Germain says they look for candidates from all walks of life and educational backgrounds. "We find that the more intelligent and well rounded our candidates are, the better police officers they make. So we have great officers who have degrees in computer science. We have officers who were mortgage brokers."

However, there is an age limit. Germain says applicants have to be appointed before their 35th birthday but he says there are some exceptions for people who have military time in a combat zone.

He says applications can either be downloaded and printed from the Barnegat Police Department website or applicants can pick them up at police headquarters. Completed applications must be returned in person to police headquarters (900 West Bay Avenue Barnegat, NJ) along with a money order (no checks or cash) for $75 payable to NJSACOP no later than 4:00 pm on Thursday June 20, 2013.

The Barnegat Police Department is a nationally accredited department with the Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies (COALEA). They're the only COALEA accredited department in Ocean County and one of only 9 in the state of New Jersey. Germain says "it essentially means that we meet the highest professional standards of that exist in law enforcement in America."