CaptBob
07-18-2005, 07:20 AM
Salvo Drop Answers
I gave a free collage seminar titled, “It’s Your Turn in the Hot Seat” recently. The format was for candidates to volunteer to sit in the hot seat and answer an oral board question. One candidate who arrived late leaped at the opportunity for the next question. Once he was in the hot seat I asked him the question, “What do you know about our department?”
The candidate proceeded to give this fast, rapid fire, long endless answer. It was like he was trying to cram everything in he could think of down to fine details. Just when you though he was coming in for a landing, he touched down and took flight again. You could see the glaze coming over those in the room (as you would see from an oral board panel) as he continued.
When he finally ended the first comment from the room was, wasn’t that answer too long? The attendees saw first hand how these long endless salvo drop answers can start to work against you to the point of overkill, making you sound anal. Oh, yea this is the guy we want to stick in a station and drive everyone else crazy.
One candidate said he had been told by many other candidates and firefighters to keep answering until they stop you. Well, put your self in the position of a panel member and you have to stop this guy to get him to shut up. How would you rate them?
Keep in mind too that in a 20-minute interview you will have about 5 questions and answers. If you go endless in your answers, you might get cut off before you got to deliver some of the best stuff. If the interview is timed, you could not have enough time to complete all of the questions.
Being too brief can be another problem. A recent candidate when asked "What have you done to prepare for the position" said, "Well, I've been in the airforce. That should tell you who and what I am." That was his complete answer. Another answered the question "Why do you want to work for our city" with, "Well, your hiring and I'm looking." Next.
Yep, there will be questions that require more time than others.
The goal is to be prepared to deliver a "Nugget" answer that will get you a top score on that question, satisfy the oral board and cause them to go on to the next question.
We refer to these long answers as Salvo Drops.
Salvo Drops
This is from Tom Dominguez: Answering the question longer than a two minute response can be considered a salvo drop. A salvo drop is where an air tanker drops the whole load of retardant or water on a fire all at once instead of spreading it out. All retardant compartment doors are opened at the same time. This is done when the retardant is needed all at once. Do you need to “salvo drop” the interview panel on every interview question? One exception is the answer to the question, “What Have you Done to Prepare for the Position?” You don’t want to hold anything back here. Dump the whole load.
Tom is right about salvo drops. I’ve had candidates where the instant we would finish a question they would immediately start like a parrot on this salvo drop, never coming up for air, or giving the raters an opportunity to interact. Often it was word for word, without being personalized to the candidate, out of one of the many books out there with suggested oral board answers. Valuable points are lost here.
Once again, since oral board scores are calculated in hundredths of points (82.15, 87.63, 90.87, etc), the goal is to keep building on a few hundredths of points here, a few there, pulling away from the parrot salvo dropping clones.
You can find more on testing secrets in the Career Article section from the Jobs drop down menu just above this posting.
"Nothing counts 'til you have the badge . . . Nothing!"
Fire "Captain Bob" Author,
Becoming A Firefighter,
Conquer Fire Department Oral Boards, and
It’s Your Turn in the Hot Seat!
www.eatstress.com
888-238-3959
I gave a free collage seminar titled, “It’s Your Turn in the Hot Seat” recently. The format was for candidates to volunteer to sit in the hot seat and answer an oral board question. One candidate who arrived late leaped at the opportunity for the next question. Once he was in the hot seat I asked him the question, “What do you know about our department?”
The candidate proceeded to give this fast, rapid fire, long endless answer. It was like he was trying to cram everything in he could think of down to fine details. Just when you though he was coming in for a landing, he touched down and took flight again. You could see the glaze coming over those in the room (as you would see from an oral board panel) as he continued.
When he finally ended the first comment from the room was, wasn’t that answer too long? The attendees saw first hand how these long endless salvo drop answers can start to work against you to the point of overkill, making you sound anal. Oh, yea this is the guy we want to stick in a station and drive everyone else crazy.
One candidate said he had been told by many other candidates and firefighters to keep answering until they stop you. Well, put your self in the position of a panel member and you have to stop this guy to get him to shut up. How would you rate them?
Keep in mind too that in a 20-minute interview you will have about 5 questions and answers. If you go endless in your answers, you might get cut off before you got to deliver some of the best stuff. If the interview is timed, you could not have enough time to complete all of the questions.
Being too brief can be another problem. A recent candidate when asked "What have you done to prepare for the position" said, "Well, I've been in the airforce. That should tell you who and what I am." That was his complete answer. Another answered the question "Why do you want to work for our city" with, "Well, your hiring and I'm looking." Next.
Yep, there will be questions that require more time than others.
The goal is to be prepared to deliver a "Nugget" answer that will get you a top score on that question, satisfy the oral board and cause them to go on to the next question.
We refer to these long answers as Salvo Drops.
Salvo Drops
This is from Tom Dominguez: Answering the question longer than a two minute response can be considered a salvo drop. A salvo drop is where an air tanker drops the whole load of retardant or water on a fire all at once instead of spreading it out. All retardant compartment doors are opened at the same time. This is done when the retardant is needed all at once. Do you need to “salvo drop” the interview panel on every interview question? One exception is the answer to the question, “What Have you Done to Prepare for the Position?” You don’t want to hold anything back here. Dump the whole load.
Tom is right about salvo drops. I’ve had candidates where the instant we would finish a question they would immediately start like a parrot on this salvo drop, never coming up for air, or giving the raters an opportunity to interact. Often it was word for word, without being personalized to the candidate, out of one of the many books out there with suggested oral board answers. Valuable points are lost here.
Once again, since oral board scores are calculated in hundredths of points (82.15, 87.63, 90.87, etc), the goal is to keep building on a few hundredths of points here, a few there, pulling away from the parrot salvo dropping clones.
You can find more on testing secrets in the Career Article section from the Jobs drop down menu just above this posting.
"Nothing counts 'til you have the badge . . . Nothing!"
Fire "Captain Bob" Author,
Becoming A Firefighter,
Conquer Fire Department Oral Boards, and
It’s Your Turn in the Hot Seat!
www.eatstress.com
888-238-3959