A World of HR Solutions:
Border Patrol Intensifies Recruitment Efforts

Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) has seen a significant increase in operations and responsibilities. Its core mission of monitoring and intercepting illegal immigrants was expanded, hence the urgent mission to add more than 4,000 border patrol agents as quickly as possible. CBP concluded that existing internal resources could not be expected to meet the accelerated goal.

In April 2007, CPS Human Resource Services was awarded a CBP contract through an inter-agency agreement with an existing Transportation Security Administration (TSA) contract. The CBP contract allowed CPS to expand its involvement with the Department of Homeland Security through the inclusion of border patrol agent recruitment.

CPS developed a national recruiting team to supplement the recruiting efforts already in place within CBP and some 150 border patrol agents/recruiters at the national and sector-level. The CPS recruitment team mission was to identify recruiting venues and opportunities that were not being pursued by CBP staff. Utilizing electronic and print media, national and regional organizations (i.e., NAACP, VFW, NOW) as well as local community outreach, job fairs and creative recruiting venues, CPS has broadened the potential audience for career opportunities within border patrol and has helped the agency establish a “brand” within the community.  

CPS also began working with the Border Patrol Agent Information Center (BPAIC) located within the TSA Recruitment Center. Operated by one of CPS’s partners, FPMI, the BPAIC worked jointly with the recruitment team to answer applicant questions related to job requirements, application issues, process inquiries, etc. As a result of the additional support provided by FPMI, the BPAIC has placed almost 60,000 “encouragement” calls to potential candidates. Encouragement calls are routinely made during evening hours to remind applicants of their test appointments, to urge applicants to obtain and use the CBP study guide in preparation for this 4.5 hour written test and to encourage applicants to complete the application (or to assist with the application.) The BPAIC also processes incoming calls from prospective CBP candidates with questions regarding application completion, testing and the hiring process in general. To date, the BPAIC has handled 23,000 of these incoming calls with an average wait time of only 21 seconds.

During the contract period from April through December 2007, CPS recruiters logged more than 14,000 community outreach calls, CBP was represented at 236 recruiting events within the United States and Puerto Rico, and more than 100,000 potential applicants have visited the CPS online Web portal to obtain information on becoming a border patrol agent. CBP is on its way to reaching its recruitment goals.

Contributing writers and CPS recruitment team members – Ken Gaffey and Joey O’Neill.

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