SkillBridge: The Law Enforcement Talent Pipeline
Secure physically fit, pre-screened, disciplined, and service oriented talent. Establish a sustainable and scalable talent pipeline for your agency at the local, regional, and national level.
Start Your SkillBridge AuditThe Power of SkillBridge
SkillBridge is the most efficient and low-risk recruiting tool available to law enforcement when properly implemented.
Flexible Program Lengths (Days)
More likely to pursue LEA career than non-veterans
Increased Retention in Post Service Role
The Dual Advantage: Cost Savings & Strategic Value
SkillBridge, when implemented correctly with PHS guidance, transforms into a powerful financial and talent acquisition tool—not just another recruiting program.
Real Cost Savings (The Budget Impact)
By shifting the financial burden of early screening and assessment to the DoD, your agency realizes substantial, measurable savings on a per-hire basis.
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Zero Salary & Benefits Cost: The DoD covers all service member compensation (pay, allowances, health insurance) for the duration of the 90/120/180-day program. You get high-value labor at $0 cost.
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Massive Reduction in Attrition Risk: Pre-vetting over 180 days virtually guarantees candidate commitment, saving the agency the $100,000+ cost associated with a lateral officer replacement.
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Lower Recruitment Expenses: Reduces reliance on costly career fairs, travel budgets, and external advertising, as the talent pipeline is built and maintained internally.
Strategic Value Add (The Talent Advantage)
The program acts as the ultimate low-risk talent evaluation tool, providing data-driven insight into a candidate’s future performance.
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Risk-Free, Live Assessment: A 90-180 day experience allows your agency to evaluate the candidate’s professionalism, work ethic, and cultural fit in a live environment before offering a conditional offer of employment.
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Pre-Vetted for Core Values: Every service member is already vetted for discipline, background, and adherence to a strict code of conduct, eliminating the highest-risk screening phases associated with civilian hires.
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Accelerated Time-to-Hire: By aligning the SkillBridge completion date with the conditional offer, you drastically reduce the lag time between identifying and onboarding a qualified officer.
What is the DoD SkillBridge Program?
SkillBridge is a high-impact, joint training program that helps fill civilian roles while providing transitioning service members with the necessary non-military skills for post-service employment.
The program is essentially an experience operated through a partnership with the Department of Defense (DoD), allowing active-duty service members to participate in training for civilian roles during their final 180 days of service. The DoD covers all salary and benefits for the duration of the program.
- Retention and Transition: SkillBridge directly addresses the common need of transitioning service members for career exposure, which significantly increases their long-term retention as officers once hired.
- Full Screening Authority: Your law enforcement agency retains the ability to screen and vet SkillBridge applicants using the exact same methods (background checks, physical fitness tests, etc.) used for civilian applicants.
- Exclusive Early Access: As an approved partner, your agency gains access to candidates up to one year before they separate, allowing you to secure top talent and prevent them from becoming applicants for a competing agency.
- Scalability for Growth: Whether your department needs to hire a handful of new officers per year or scale up to onboarding hundreds of officers, the SkillBridge framework can be tailored to meet your local, regional, or national recruitment goals.
Why 85% of SkillBridge LEA Programs Underperform or Fail
Out of over 150 approved law enforcement agencies, most struggle to maintain a high-converting pipeline. They fail due to three common execution gaps.
1. Unrealistic Program Expectations
The most common failure that leads to candidate withdrawal and frustrated stakeholders.
2. Generic Outreach and Engagement
Reliance on generic career fairs and job boards that fail to connect with talent early in their transition planning.
3. Untrained Recruiters & Stakeholders
A lack of understanding of military culture and structure generally results in treating military talent the same way as civilian candidates.
STOP Losing Top Tier Veteran Talent.
If your existing SkillBridge program isn’t yielding hires, you’re not compliant, or you’re losing candidates, immediate redesign is required. We transform underperforming initiatives into high-conversion pipelines.
We analyze your entire recruiting lifecycle from first contact to conditional offer. We identify bottlenecks, cultural friction points, and administrative drag that push qualified veterans toward competitors.
We establish clear, DoD-compliant objectives and a new MOA structure, ensuring the experience is valuable for the service member while fully meeting all regulatory requirements to mitigate the risk of program termination.
Crucially, we train your team in military transition fluency—including rank structure, MOS translation, and separation timelines—ensuring every interaction is knowledgeable, respectful, and effective.
The PHS SkillBridge Implementation Lifecycle
We partner with your agency to manage the entire process—from initial provider approval to full program handover and long-term sustainment.
Organizational Approval & Parallel Workflow Design
We partner with your leadership to prepare and submit the necessary documentation for organizational approval and the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA). PHS guides your team through the DoD approval process for both organizational status and the training plan. Crucially, this is done in parallel with designing efficient workflows for candidate outreach and selection, ensuring a seamless and fast start.
High-Conversion Program & Curriculum Design
We custom-design two parallel curriculum options (90-day and 120-day) to accommodate various service branch requirements. This approach ensures maximum value for the veteran and integrates directly with your existing hiring processes. This strategy aligns program completion with conditional offers to ensure maximum conversion.
Execution, Training, & Independent Handover
PHS assists in the initial execution and provides comprehensive training to your recruiters and leadership. We establish military cultural fluency and transfer all operational knowledge, ensuring your team can confidently engage, operate, and scale the program independently.