Recruitment

[ccc530]

We use signs around the city, advertising in the local newspapers and a T.V. spot which we run on the local cable channels. But with all of that, nothing takes the place of word of mouth. Lastly, it takes leadership. Look around: where there are leaders, there are people. Create some excitment in your station!

[Tom Lafleur]

We usually have a waiting list of people who want to get on. We are a small Dept. in Mass. with 4 full timers and 30 Paid on call.
The problem is newbies must take 12 week FF1 coarse to be appointed,for no pay. This usually weeds out the maybes.So anyone who sticks with it will probably stick around.

[knewburn]

Our dept has the best luck recruiting new members by word of mouth.We have 46 fire firefighters and 2 sta.'s but we manage to have a waiting list of personnel wanting to join.

[chiefnfd]

When I first clicked on to this topic I thought there would be some new ideas on recruitment. I run a small volunteer department in Canada, with 25 members. Our population is primarily an aging one, most of our people work away from the area. Youg people tend to move to locate work. It makes recruitment a special challange. I would like to be like some departments and have a waiting list but I don't. I have used a number of methods some pay dividens and some do not. The main thing is to keep trying.

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Regards, Raymond Godfrey

[JWood]

I am Chief of a station in a county with a million people (Fairfax, VA). We did a lousy job of recruiting for a long time. Our single biggest draw is a good web page, and getting our page URL out to people. We put it on our fund drive mailings, posters around town, on our vehicles. Most of our contacts come from this. http://www.fovfr.org. Dense urban areas bring a lot of challenges for recruiting. The attitudes towards community service are also very different.

[erik]

I belong to a 4 company volunteer fire department. 3 of our 4 companies are hard pressed for members. To attract new volunteers, the department has traditionally posted signs around town and run a simple advertisement on the town's low budget television station. I undertand that some departments have had a degree of success with motivational videos focusing on the fire department. I have considered approaching our fire chief with a proposal to film such a video. Has anyone had success by creating a video to promote their department? Has anyone had success with other promotional strategies?

[erik]

I belong to a 4 company volunteer fire department. 3 of our 4 companies are hard pressed for members. To attract new volunteers, the department has traditionally posted signs around town and run a simple advertisement on the town's low budget television station. I undertand that some departments have had a degree of success with motivational videos focusing on the fire department. I have considered approaching our fire chief with a proposal to film such a video. Has anyone had success by creating a video to promote their department? Has anyone had success with other promotional strategies?

[SJCULMO]

I am from a department consisting of 2 companies under the direction of 4 Chief Officers. Over the last several years the most effective way of attracting new members has been through our Juniors Program. This program has been well supervised with dedicated active firefighters. Most of the time when a Junior is close to 17 1/2 years old we encourage him or her to attend a FF1 certification class. When they reach the age of 18 (eligible for active status) they are close to completing their FF1 certification. These new members already know the program and usally become excellent members.

[JLC]

Volunteer recruitment can be a hard issue to tackle depending upon the Fire Companies "needs" and the community the Fire Compnay serves. As a 10-yr Volunteer Firefighter, the one thing that I have learned that can "kill" a recruitment drive is how the Fire Company relates to it's community. Good interactive relations and an appearance to the community that shows not only that you as individuals or a Fire Company as a whole do care about the community, but how you present yourself to the community as well. A non-professional demeanor both on and off the Fire Ground, in or out of the Station House could have adverse effects in bringing in new members. So don't just look at how you can promote Recruitment, look at how you can promote yourselves in the community's "eyes". Would you want to volunteer for a Fire Company that horses around too much?

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Jim Cox

[martyemb]

the trick to good recuitment and retention is how you treat the people who willing to join and stay in your company. and it takes hard work my company went from 30 to 60 members in two years and has maintaned that level for over the last 4 years. the biggest thing from our members is that they feel that we the company chiefs and officers really appecate that they come out.

[Tiger]

Erie County (Buffalo NY) hired a recruitment and retention specialist: me.

I've consulted with the county for 9 years and in 1990 helped them recruit 500+ volunteers. Now it's time to do a major campaign again.

Our focus this time will be on the development of local recruitment tool kits supported by a mass media and web campaign.

One unique element of the program is the development of a Citizens Fire/Rescue/EMS Academy which will educate the participants on fire and life safety issues, offer a hands-on taste of the fire service and offer the host department(s) with a captive audience from which to "test drive" and draw new recruits.

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Tiger Schmittendorf
tiger@onscenemarketing.com
OnScene Marketing Services www.onscenemarketing.com (http://www.onscenemarketing.com)



[This message has been edited by WebTeam (edited July 19, 1999).]