question about the city or department

[hookandcanman83]

so heres the deal.... im going for an interview tomorrow(was rescheduled from 2 weeks ago) and i know the question "what do you know about the city?" is probably going to be asked. now the problem is i know this is an urban area that has all the problems urban areas have. good place to work because i know the FD is pretty good but not necessarily the best place to live. now i do not want to BS the board because im pretty sure they know it too. the question is should i BS them and say "its the greatest city in the world" or be truthful and say something like "its a city and all cities have there problems."

[JayDudley]

I'll be the first to say"Do not BS the panel"!! Try to be tactful and be careful of the traps that they might throw at you. Just be yourself , honest and to the point.

[CaptBob]

Jay is right don't try to BS because the panel members invented BS and can see it coming. You don't have to say it's the greatest department or bring up the bad stuff.

The best way to handle this type of question about the city and department is to use the shot gun effect. Give them a smattering of areas like square miles, population, type of city government, number of stations, engines, trucks, number of personnel and target hazards.

What would you think if you were on a oral panel and the candidate gave you a sample smattering answer? Right, you would think he had done their homework.

You don't want to go endless here. Just a sample smattering. I had a candidate one day tell us so much he got down to the grid water system the city used. Definitely overkill. Another candidate during coaching had a good answer for city information. In the next two weeks before his oral he piled more information onto his answer. He ended up making a long answer endless, finally telling them the number of convention hotel rooms that were available. He committed suicide in his efforts to over impress the panel. Oh, yea, this is the guy we want to put in a station that would drive EVERYONE NUTS!

This mindless, endless, rambling not only hurts your score, it robs valuable time that you could be using to let the panel know the important stuff that could improve your chances to make the final cut. Because as you know:

Absolutely nothing counts 'til you have the badge. Nothing!