Sheriff's office using Facebook, Twitter to address deputy shortage

Sheriff's office using Facebook, Twitter to address deputy shortage
Published: Sep. 27, 2016 at 8:35 PM EDT|Updated: Sep. 27, 2016 at 9:18 PM EDT
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CHARLESTON COUNTY, SC (WCSC) - The Charleston County Sheriff's Office is turning to Facebook and Twitter to address a deputy shortage at the agency.

The office is down eight deputies and also has to fill 16 newly created positions. Sheriff's spokesman Major Eric Watson says the office had to reinvent their recruiting strategy after losing some deputies.

"We included social media as part of our strategy to recruit new applicants," Watson said.

Noah Jameson and Clint Sacks are two of the newest deputies with the sheriff's office. Both men started their jobs in June and both also found their jobs online.

"Everyone's on social media it seems these days. You can get your information out very quickly," Sacks said.

The sheriff's office is using its Twitter and Facebook pages to spread the word. Watson says their job recruiter lets followers know when she will be at a job fair. Many of those fairs are in other parts of the state.

On Tuesday, she was in Columbia.

"As she goes out to these job fairs she's also tweeting," Watson said. "We want to reach out to the younger people, millennials. They are on social media 24-7, 7 days a week."

Watson says so far the strategy is working.

"They're calling every day, they're reaching out. As a matter of fact we had a young guy reach out to us on Twitter, said he just tweeted he wanted to apply for a job," he said.

Jameson and Sacks are glad social media helped them find their way to the sheriff's office.

"I love talking to the community, being active in the community. It seems like they're pretty active in the community which I'm all about," Jameson said.

What may have once been considered an unusual way to recruit job candidates is now becoming the norm.

"It's here to stay. We're not gonna stop using it," Watson said.

The Berkeley County Sheriff's Office, meanwhile, is trying to fill six openings, while the North Charleston Police Department has 16 openings.

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