APD loses paper applications

Prospective Austin Police Department officers no longer have to mail in a nearly 40-page application in order to be considered for a job, the city announced Tuesday. The new electronic application lives at www.apdrecruiting.org, where applicants will fill out a questionnaire and submit a current Experian credit report. The department explained that before now, some people spent a lot of time and money to send in forms only to be told they didn’t qualify for the job. The hope is that this will make it easier to sift through potential officers while at the same time increasing transparency.