The OPP has made a "culture shift" away from so-called life experience candidates in a bid to attract young recruits, according to Commissioner Vince Hawkes.
Commissioner Hawkes says provincial police changed its recruiting strategy two years ago with a heavy focus on social media to "tap into those young minds."
Hawkes say fewer young people are choosing policing careers.
"We find in last two years, every police agency is struggling to meet their numbers of new hires," said Hawkes.
"I think this generation of young folks don't see the profession of policing as something they want to do for the next 30 plus years," Hawkes said. "I think that's one of those trends we're seeing across the board in other sectors. They think, I'm gonna try out policing for a while and move from job to job."
Hawkes say all police forces are competing for the diverse candidates and "the numbers aren't there" across the province.
The Commissioner also says the force needs to change the public perception that they only hire recruits in their late twenties.
"To me that's how policing has evolved over the years because of those demands about life experience and so on but I'm of the belief that we need to tap into younger folks," Hawkes said. "There's a lot of people with life experience coming right out of university and I think we're missing out by just focussing on those individuals who have been around for an extra four or five years."
The challenge according to Hawkes is educating people on the benefits and rewards of becoming a police officer: that within a police career you can have multiple careers, go from specialty to specialty and in the OPP you can go to different parts of the province.
The OPP's long-term strategy is to start focussing on high schools but right now the target is college and university campuses.
Through social media the Commissioner says they can also to reach people across Canada and around the world.
It's part of Hawkes vision to revamp and modernize the way the service approaches careers from recruitment to retirement.
The change in strategy also includes the promotional process to ensure the most qualified candidates are moving into the right positions.
