Recruitment is a major struggle within the fire service. Nationwide the story is the same: We have very few applying.
When I started my career in the fire service, the number of jobs that were available was slim to none. The thought of being hired full-time as a young, rookie candidate was a pipe dream. Even part-time candidates were in competition with one another.
Unfortunately, the times have changed dramatically. Now, we must come up with ideas not only on how to recruit members but how to retain the ones who we have. Even after utilizing these strategies, we still face a problem: a limited candidate pool.
Furthermore, we all are trying to pull from the same pool of candidates, and we are forcing these candidates to chase the dollar. A department will increase wages to get ahead of the department down the street. The fire service operates like Major League Baseball. “Players” are called up to, if you will, Double-A teams after being in Class A; then, they might get “traded” around a bit until they are called up to “Triple-A.” However, unlike the MLB, the fire service doesn’t have an abundance of high school and college candidates to step in to replace the mass number of veterans who retire/leave.
In 2017, the vocational school that’s in my department’s area began a project to offer a yearlong Firefighter EMT course that’s structured around a high school senior timeframe. I was hired as the coordinator for the program. There are many responsibilities. However, the most challenging responsibility by far was recruitment. How do I convince 16-year-olds who have no idea what they want to do in life to choose the fire service?
Recently, local fire chiefs and education leaders gathered for a summit to discuss recruitment challenges in our region. As I listened, I empathized with these chiefs and other program directors. I had faced the same challenges.
Problem 1: Perception
In my department’s area, we face different challenges as far as public perception than do neighboring counties and municipalities.
In our county, only a handful of departments staff personnel 24/7; in nearby counties, a staffed fire station might be on every block.
Many members of the public in our area think of the fire department as a volunteer-based entity that puts out fires and that the “ambulance people” are different.
Many of the high school students and staff who I talked to recently had no idea that the fire service can become a fulfilling career.
The solution to the problem of perception lies in the answer to the question, who are we sending to talk to these people? Are we sending the burnt out, disgruntled paramedics who forgot the reason that they got into the fire service to begin with? The salaried administrative person who hasn’t ridden a truck in years? The unshaven guy with his shirt untucked who tells students that they can get paid to play Xbox? If the answer is yes, we are sending the wrong people.
To begin every conversation that I have with students and staff, I ask, “What does the fire department do?” Most of the responses are one of these three: It puts out fires. It helps people. It saves cats out of trees. When I start to talk about the many job responsibilities that we have in the fire service, eyes light up. I have their attention. I give them real-life examples. I don’t lie. I tell them that EMS is 80 percent–90 percent of our job and that most calls aren’t the blood-and-guts that they see on prime time TV. I give them examples of the types of calls that we go on, including the mundane ones. I do talk about “getting paid to sleep,” but I follow that up with description of the 24-hour shifts when members don’t get so much as a cat nap.
This approach builds trust and just might prevent the creation of that burnt out, disgruntled firefighter who was fed a line.
It’s important to talk about pay scales, annual salaries and retirement, but I always make sure that they understand that this isn’t easy stuff.
I always finish by saying, “You must want to do this. It isn’t for everyone. If you are unsure, go talk to fire department members. Ask to ride as an observer. See whether you like it before you jump in with both feet.”
Problem 2: Schools denying fire department entry
A recurring theme from many of the chiefs at the aforementioned summit was, “We can’t get into the schools.”
Many teachers and counselors don’t understand the importance of the fire service nor do they see the staffing struggles that the fire service has. When I tried to schedule a high school visit, I usually was told that I could come talk to the “interested” students at a certain time or during lunch. I asked, “How do we know whether a student is interested?” Their response: “We’ve been announcing every morning about your program.”
I thought that was somewhat helpful, until I heard what was announced: “A representative from the career center will be here to talk about senior-only options for students who are looking for alternate opportunities.” Then there’s the fact that most students don’t hear the announcements, because students talk during them.
Also, lunch is a horrible time to try to get a high schooler’s attention. They have, maybe, a half-hour to unwind and socialize with their friends—oh, and eat. The last thing that they want to do is talk to me.
From talking with the students who already enrolled in the Firefighter EMT program, I found that the program unknowingly had benefited from a very supportive English teacher. She had been providing her students with ideas for careers and had been pushing heavily on the trades. Upon learning this, I had a short email conversation with the teacher, and she and I set up an entire day for me to talk with her classes. I never saw so much interest. It turned out that numerous students in each class had to get a hall pass, because they wanted to talk to me beyond what the class time permitted.
The point here: Talk to teachers and kids. You never know, you might find your alternate way into the school.
Problem 3: We aren’t permitted to talk to the “good ones”
Early in my position as program coordinator, I wanted to send a flyer to high school juniors at one of our local schools. I requested and received a mailing list, but about 40 percent of the names were crossed off with a black marker. Those students, I was told, were “college bound” or “not what I was looking for.”
In this vein, some chiefs feel discouraged that they can’t speak to the honor society students or the highly athletic kids at schools. Now, don’t get me wrong, I want to talk to them also, but sometimes the “good ones” aren’t the only ones we should talk to.
Consider the students who try out for the football team and don’t make the cut: We must be talking to those students and asking whether they ever thought of a career where they can be a professional athlete, such as the fire service.
Furthermore, there are hidden qualities and interests in all of these students; we just have to bring those qualities and interests to the surface. The opportunities in today’s fire service are endless. If a specific hobby interests someone, more than likely, we can find a way to fit them into our organization.
We are so fixated on looking for the next Tom Brady of firefighting, but, remember, Tom Brady was so low on the depth chart on the University of Michigan football team that he considered transferring. He was picked 199th in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft. He was the sixth quarterback drafted.
I have seen students who came into my program as “bad kids” go on to have flourishing careers.
The onus is on us
We must get better at recruiting the next generation. Let’s face it, old recruitment strategies don’t work. The perfect person isn’t going to waltz in the door because he or she saw a posting in the newspaper. We must go to them! Our lives and the future of the service depend on it.
