Fire Fighter Recruitment Plan

Fire Fighter Recruitment Plan

Katelyn Bohn

Executive Summary

In this recruitment plan, you will see our strategy for attracting and hiring the best qualified candidate for your position. Our goal is to attract and maintain employees. We have many recruitment goals, such as ensuring a nondiscriminatory applicant pool. We have also developed a strong job description that you will see later in this plan. We have a very detailed people finding and interviewing strategy that you will see later but it’s generally built to find us the best candidate. And finally, our selection technique is, simply put, to find a brave, capable person with potential. We ultimately want to obtain a diverse workforce.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Recruitment Goals

Core Competencies

Job Description

People Finding Strategy

Interviewing Strategy

Selection Technique

Conclusion

References

Recruitment Goals

Our number one recruitment goal is to personalize the recruitment process. We will achieve this by: (1) Develop a list of appropriate recruitment coordinators to be available for contact with any questions. These coordinators will be trained to know what kind of information they can provide, and how often they should. (2) Keep candidates up to date with information on the recruitment and selection process. (3) Keep in touch with underrepresented ethnic groups by using talk shows and radio stations with high ethnic demographics. (4) Engage with community organizations to reach locally. (5) Use a lot of recruitment advertising mainly on social media platforms.

Our next goal is to diversify our hiring techniques. We will do this by: (1) Using the knowledge of current employees to refer qualified candidates. We will gather input from employees- ideas for improvement, etc. (2) Keep track of the employees who give input and actually refer candidates. (3) Have specific employees dedicated to recruitment. (4) Set standard numbers for minority groups as a goal to get them to apply.

Our final goal is to reduce the time required for the hiring process by 15%. We will do this by: (1) Describing the hiring process and deciding what is and isn’t necessary. (2) Review the background requirements which allows you to immediately eliminate some candidates from consideration.

Competency Models

Below, I have outlined our core competencies and described them.

Public Service

Educates the public. It’s important to inspect buildings for proper smoke detectors, attend large gatherings to ensure fire safety is taken seriously, etc.

Provides and demonstrates quality customer service. Show example for the community.

Communication

Properly handles emergencies. Communicates accurately and efficiently.

Proper use of fire radio. Promptly transmits information.

Processes paperwork correctly. Incident reports are accurate and complete

Communicates with community in order to stay safe.

Listens actively with everyone.

Effective verbal and non-verbal communication.

Takes criticism effectively and develops upon it.

Teamwork

Participates actively- does his/her part.

Mutual respect between peers, community, etc.

Supports organization’s goals.

Considers impact of actions.

Professionalism

Treat everyone with respect and fairness.

Embraces company’s goals through all aspects.

Strong work ethic in order to keep community safe.

Strong ethical standards. Knows how to handle ethical dilemmas.

Positive attitude. Focuses on opportunities rather than negativity.

Time-management by responding promptly and appropriately.

Job Description

Our department has high standards when hiring new employees. We value respect, responsibility, and teamwork. It takes a lot of courage to risk your life and be a fire fighter. We aim to achieve a comfortable, efficient, and diverse work environment. While there are the obvious responsibilities of extinguishing fires, we also have many other requirements. Our job description is as follows.

Protect citizens during emergencies.

Prevent fire damage by conducting inspections for hazards.

Conduct educational programs to prepare citizens for emergencies.

Testing fire hydrants to ensure availability of water at scene.

Responding to scenes quickly to minimize damage to buildings and people.

Conduct equipment tests to maintain necessary maintenance.

Evaluates new techniques and equipment to ensure efficiency in an emergency.

Maintains knowledge by attending educational training and participating in scheduled drills.

Work as a team to ensure results are accomplished.

Employees will work in 8-12 hour shifts with the occasional 24-hour shift.

Necessary Qualifications/ skills:

Heavy lifting

Physical Fitness

Decision Making

Good under pressure

High judgement

Dependability

Emotional control when necessary

Safety management

Education/ Experience/ Age Requirements:

High school diploma or equivalent

At least 18 years old

Must pass physical and written tests

Drug screening

Medical exam

People Finding Strategy

Our goal is to attract a skilled and diverse workforce. In order to do this, we will advertise through flyers, career events, social media, and most importantly through our current employees. We want to find employees that contain goals that are consistent with our company’s goals.

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Flyers: We will create flyers that portray our diverse and cohesive image. We will post these flyers to anywhere its allowed, such as; high schools, college campuses, diverse clubs, etc.

Career Events: We will have an employee dedicated to attending events where they will recruit qualified candidates.

Social Media: We will take advantage of social media to attract the new generation.

Current Employees: We will encourage our current employees to make recommendations and be aware of potential candidates.

Interviewing Strategy

Our interview strategy is very simple because the candidates have to pass the firefighter test which handles their capability aspect. We want to find honest, genuine employee.

We first look at presentation; did they bring a resume? Are they dressed presentable? Does it look like they took time to prepare for this? And most importantly, do they look happy to be here?

Next, we pay attention to how they answer questions; are they actually listening? Are they being honest or are these planned made-up answers? Are they passionate?

And finally, we want to ensure we are happy with their answers to the following interview questions.

QUESTIONS AND IDEAL ANSWERS:

Why do you want to work in this industry? Talk about history with industry and what attracted you to it.

Tell us about yourself. Doesn’t read off of resume. Talk about role-related strengths.

Why are you leaving your current role? Looking for a challenge to broaden skills.

What’s your greatest weakness? Use a real example of a weakness overcome.

Why should I hire you? Highlight what makes them unique.

What did you learn from your greatest failure? Focus on how a minor failure made them better.

When were you most satisfied in your job? Be specific and enthusiastic.

Selection Technique

Our selection technique is fairly set. There are many tests applicants must pass. At the end of the day, safety is most important. The standard National Firefighter Selection (NFS) process is as follows.

A PQA based application form

Physical tests

Medical tests

Ability tests

Final Interview

As it is not required to follow the NFS process, we do and will change it where necessary.

To begin the selection process, candidates must first pass ALL of the necessary tests- with no exception. Then from there, if we have multiples to choose from, we will just choose the candidates we feel are most fit.

Conclusion

After researching all of the necessary information, we were able to put together this recruitment plan. Firefighters are very selfless people, willing to risk their life every day. We admire every candidate who even applies for this job. We hope this recruitment plan has much success. If there are any questions or any additional information is needed, please feel free to contact me at kbohn1@students.towson.edu.

References

Bendersky, C. (2018, December 20). Making U.S. Fire Departments More Diverse and Inclusive. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2018/12/making-u-s-fire-departments-more-diverse-and-inclusive

Firefighter Job Description Sample. (2019, September 13). Retrieved from https://hiring.monster.com/employer-resources/job-description-templates/firefighter-job-description/Link, F. (n.d.). 15 Toughest Firefighter Interview Questions. Retrieved from https://www.military.com/veteran-jobs/career-advice/interview-tips/15-toughest-firefighter-interview-questions.html

The future of the fire service: Hiring for character. (2019, September 16). Retrieved from https://www.firerescue1.com/recruitment/articles/the-future-of-the-fire-service-hiring-for-character-gVmvFgcmoVWfcYGz/The Selection Process. (2018, April 2). Retrieved from https://www.fireservice.co.uk/recruitment/the-selection-process/