i put out a survey a few weeks ago and hundreds of you actually answered so thank you to those of you that did answer this survey asking you what do you guys want to know more about what do you guys want to learn more about what do you guys want to hear more about and a very very very large majority of you wanted to find out more about the firefighter interview everything that has to do with what to expect how to answer questions everything about it so in this video my aim in this video is to make this the number one most comprehensive resource for everything related to the firefighter interview we will cover everything from the very beginning to you just find out that you have an interview scheduled in two weeks three weeks a month whatever to the very end how do you end this um how do you follow up when do you follow up what do you do if you don't get the job right that's that's a pretty common thing for a lot of people and everything in between we'll be going over questions it's going to be broken actually into three parts one is everything leading up to the interview number two is everything in the interview and then number three is everything after the interview so i apologize ahead of time if this video gets kind of long-winded feel free to stop come back take notes do whatever you want to do but my aim with this video is to make this as comprehensive as as possible the best resource out there for that a couple more things that i want to go over before we jump right into it um i'm also going this this video is going to end up being a premiere so if you're watching this as this premieres ask me i'm not sure what side it's going to be in ask me questions i will be literally sitting here watching typing uh answering anything you have questions about if you don't watch this while it's premiered feel free to leave any questions in the comments below any comments anything like that i read all of them i may or may not get to it especially if it's a really long-winded thing but if you have video recommendations or hey you didn't really talk about this you didn't really cover that so could you make a video about that i'll read it and if and if it's if there's enough content about it i'll definitely make a video about it so feel free to leave any comments below if you aren't here actually asking me questions um also like i said this is trying i'm trying to make this as is as comprehensive as possible but if i forget something down in the description i will create a a an add-on video section where oh i look back and say oh god i completely forgot to talk about whatever i'll make another video about it and i'll just put it down there so check that there may be videos there there may not be but just going forward know that that will be down in the comments below also a lot of the stuff that i'm going to be talking about in this webinar or class whatever you want to call this i've already done other videos on and so as i get to that section look up above again i'm not sure what side it's going to pop up from you'll see the the link to that video that goes into more depth they're not crazy long videos are anywhere from 5 minutes to 15 minutes click on that link if you want to find out more about that and watch that video as well um couple things i've gotten some questions from people and again this i'll i'll do this real quick and then we're going to jump right in asking me why am i doing this why am i why am i making these videos why am i taking the time i don't know how long this video is going to end up being to go over all this kind of stuff and the long story short is this is my attempt to give back to the fire service when i first got into firefighting i didn't know anybody i didn't have any family members i didn't have any friends that were firefighters i knew nothing about it and when i was going through doing ride time and the fire academy and all that i remember asking a few people when i would show up at these departments hey what can i expect in the interview what what's going on and to put it in the nicest way possible they were less than helpful so this is my attempt at trying to give you as much information as you possibly can without having to pay somebody hundreds of dollars because i also think that's equally as ridiculous that there's people out there that are charging you two three four five a thousand dollars just to find out about the interview so what's going to be in this in in this video and on this channel that's not in there all the information you need is going to be on this channel somewhere as far as how to prepare for the interview what it's like to be a firefighter all that kind of stuff i'm sure they have they they have a great insight whoever these other people are but don't feel like you need to spend a ton of money or have friends or family that are in the fire service in order to get good information that said these videos do take time i'm not trying to sell you anything i do use affiliate links so if there's a product that i've personally used and that i recommend i will never recommend products to you that i haven't actually put my hands on um and you like it and you think it would be useful if you don't mind use the affiliate link it just gives me a small a small percentage back and helps out the channel going forward so last thing a couple seconds on who i am because i've also gotten questions from people about that my name is mike i am a full-time career firefighter and paramedic for city just west of cleveland ohio um and i am a columnist for fire rescue one i've appeared on several podcasts for things related to firefighting and ems and i write and talk about uh firefighting for the newer generation of firefighters the younger generation of firefighters how to get into the fire service what to expect when you're there how to improve it things like that so that's just a little bit about me this video isn't about me this video is about you and the firefighter interview so let's jump right into it and before we go right into it if you do find this helpful please click the like button click the subscribe button uh it tells youtube that you like this it tells me that you find this stuff helpful and we'll go from there i made a powerpoint for this video at some point i will try and upload the powerpoint so that if you want to see the notes that i'm actually going off of you can click on those and you can have those too if that's something you find that if that's something that you find helpful so what are we going to learn in this in this in this class uh everything about the interview like i've already said we're going to go over what to wear how to prepare what to expect when you're in there if you've never had an interview if you've never been in a fire service interview excuse me if you've never been in a fire service interview before they're a little different than your average job interview usually there's more than one person and we'll go over all that kind of going forward questions you'll be asked in the interview now it's impossible to it's impossible to to know exactly what questions you'll be asked every department's different every chief's different every officer is different but there are maybe about 10 or 12 questions that i can promise you will get either one or multiple of these questions at some point during the course of your interview so we're going to go over actual each one of those questions why they're asking it and how to what are good answers for those questions um so we'll go over that how to end the interview what questions to ask how to follow up um what to do if you don't get the job this is a very competitive field and if for some reason you don't get hired which happens to a lot of people it happens to most people at least once or maybe multiple times you don't get hired what do you do how do you deal with that and god that's that's an entire video on itself how do you deal with loss or frustration or setback but just a couple things from my own experiences of things that you can do things that you can keep in mind going forward of how to deal with that loss or setback so why is the firefighter interview important i've had a couple people tell me that it's not as important as i make it sound um that your maybe your fitness test is more important or maybe your your rank on the written test or your civil service test is more important this the firefighter interview the interview process in general is without a doubt the most important step of the hiring process for a few reasons number one it's usually the department whether it's officers or line guys or uh maybe it's the mayor or city council whoever's in there it's their first impression of you now maybe you're one of the fortunate people that has family members or friends on the department already so you already kind of have an in and that's great but a lot of people watching this might not have that and because of that as of right now until you go into that interview you're just a name on a piece of paper you're just a resume in front of them as soon as they meet you they can put a name to that face and this is your first impression everybody knows first impressions are important but nobody actually takes it that seriously so take this seriously because this is the first impression that you want to do right number two this hiring process is subjective particularly with career departments they try as hard as they can to make it as objective as they can they make you take civil service tests and then they rank you accordingly and then you can only go you know departments might have regulations as far as we can only go this far we can only pick from this pool of 10 people the top 10 you know you get ranked according to all these things and try and make it as objective as possible at the end of the day though this is a subjective process you could be number one on your fitness test you could be number one on your written written test you can pass everything with flying colors and if the chief and the officers of that department do not like you and do not think you would be an asset to their department you're not getting hired you can say that's unfair you can say whatever you want but that's the truth you need to show yourself as a professional and in a way that you will be of value to them and their department going forward if you can't do that you're not getting hired and then finally a great interview puts you at the top of the list like i said before right now you're just a name on a piece of paper when you're the person that comes in and we'll talk about the three keys to the interview and that really sets yourself apart in a big way well now everybody remembers that name and so you might be number eight on the list but all of a sudden if you come in and you smash this interview now you're number one so doing this well and getting this right can put you to the top of a hiring list so what are those three keys to the interview number one you have to be unique and memorable so what does that mean you have to be unique in the correct ways you have to put yourself head and shoulders above of the rest of the competition especially if you're trying to get on to a career department this is competitive some tests have thousands of people taking the test to get hired at this department whether it be police fire whatever a lot of these public safety jobs we'll have thousands of people show up maybe you're going to a smaller smaller departments smaller suburb wherever and maybe there's only 30 people or 40 people that's still a lot of people you are going to be competing against a lot of names so you need to find some way in your interview to make you to set yourself apart to make you unique from everybody else you also need to find a way to be memorable you need to whether it be by your actions or your words and preferably both do or say something that they remember now it's important to not do something stupid a lot of people think being unique and memorable means you need to be outlandish and that's not what i mean you need to find ways and there's a video on this to set yourself apart from the from the rest of the pack in a big way number two you have to present yourself in a clean-cut professional manner what does that mean well we'll go over what you should be wearing when you're at the interview but even if for some reason you're not wearing that and i'll give you some recommendations you have to be clean cut means cut your hair it means shave your beard one of the best pieces of advice i got from a friend was never offend the sensibilities of a group that you're trying to join if you're new to the fire service and you're trying to join the fire service and everybody that you're sitting in front of is clean shaven with a tight haircut and they look good and they look professional and very clean cut you probably should be too um don't come in there with a beard and expect everybody to think like oh well it's okay he'll shave it later okay don't offend the sensibilities of the group you're trying to join so you need to look professional and then finally be confident now i almost didn't want to put that in there and i didn't want to say that because it sounds so cliche and it's it's hard to come up with concrete things that i can say do this and you'll be confident because you might not be but being confident isn't necessarily just how you feel at least for the sake of of of this interview being confident is how you're you're projecting yourself so inside in your head you might have butterflies you might be nervous you might be scared you might be sweating whatever as long as you're presenting yourself as though you're confident in the things that you're saying and who who you are you're gonna set yourself above above other people i've seen and heard other interviews a lot of people don't do that very well they stutter and stammer over their words they can't get things right they're fidgeting they're moving around constantly something just as simple as sitting up straight with your shoulders back and your head held high now i'm not talking about being arrogant or or thinking you're better than everybody else but just presenting yourself in a confident way will go miles regardless of how nervous you are so just keep that in mind as well going forward so what to expect now if you've never had a fire service interview before um like i said before they're a little bit different um it's usually three to five officers is how it'll usually be a panel not all of them are like this right these are just guidelines usually the chief will be one of that panel captains lieutenants every once in a while i've heard of departments bringing in line guys or just non-officers to sit in because that's going to be the people that you're going to be interacting with the most as soon as you get hired i've also heard of people bringing in mayors i've heard of people bringing in city council members i've heard of people bringing in just you know how just normal everyday citizen who's involved in the community to come sit in there's usually going to be a panel of people so it will be a formal setting the officers that will be interviewing you will almost always be and at the very least their class b uniform which if you aren't familiar with a class b uniform is it's usually a button-up shirt with a tie class a uniforms excuse me are the ones with the jackets and the badge and the gold stripes and all that kind of stuff i've been in interviews where they've worn class a's i've been in interviews where they've worn class b's just depends on the department either way it will be formal to a certain extent almost always um what to expect as far as how you should address them address them by their title if they're chief so-and-so if they're assistant chief so-and-so if they're captain so-and-so if they're lieutenant so-and-so address them by their title and if you aren't familiar with them enough to know what their actual title is call them sir ma'am that's always your fallback but always stick with sir or ma'am um and then one other thing to expect and nobody really talks about this very much is in that panel and this isn't always the case you might have one i call them the aggressive interviewer now the aggressive interviewer obviously isn't somebody that's going to physically be aggressive with you but they're going to be the person that's going to push you on every question that you ask so let's say you talk about how uh you know i used to work as uh i used to work as a carpenter well maybe one of those men or women on that panel used to be a carpenter so they're going to start asking you questions about that well tell me how you would do this that or the other thing they're going to push you on whatever answer you get and it's part of it they want to see how you deal with that stress now that's not every single interview but it's happened to me several times and just know that that's something that might happen which is goes back to something else we'll talk about is the importance of preparation make sure you're prepared because if you do run into that aggressive interviewer they're going to push you and if you're not ready you're going to stumble and it's not going to look good so how to prepare speaking of which there's four good ways that i know of of how to prepare the very first and easiest is to write down your answers if you go over to firefighternow.com i'll put a link below you can find a list of 51 different interview questions chances are you're not going to get all 51 interview questions because that would be a very long interview take that list and if you're serious about this print it out write them down and write out your answers to each one of those questions now you don't have to write them an essay form but just write two or three bullet points for what your answers would be to each one of those questions there's something about taking information out of your head and taking a pen and writing it down that cements it in your head so that's the simplest and easiest way second easiest way is just to just record yourself chances are if you're watching this video you have a computer or a smartphone or a tablet or something like that the beauty of all these things is the all these things are can also be used as recording devices record yourself take that list from firefighternow.com that you just printed out or wrote down set it out in front of yourself ask yourself the question and then answer it back with a recorder on now when you record yourself you're probably going to hate the sound of your voice get over it everybody hates the sound of their voice you don't sound as bad as you think you do but what you're going to want to listen for is um well what i just did right there you're going to want to listen for um's uh stumbling constantly repeating words saying things that didn't really make any sense and the more that you answered the repetition of answering the same question again and again and again and again you're going to notice that you're going to get a lot better as far as that repetition those arms those filler words things like that number three is practice in the mirror so we talked about being confident in the importance of that this is why you want to sit down in front of a mirror and actually practice and again i'm going to warn you i'm going to give you a heads up this is going to be awkward you're going to feel stupid doing it everybody does just do it get over it if you're serious about this you'll take the preparation serious and you'll just get in there and get it done take that list of questions that you have literally sit yourself down in a chair hold up the questions and ask yourself the question and look yourself in the eye as you respond what you're looking for when you do this is do you have any nervous ticks do you kind of lean to the side you get nervous and shuffle around you don't need to be a robot but at the same time make sure that just watch yourself see how you present yourself as you speak that's really important again because even if you're nervous if you're presenting yourself and everybody's looking at you thinking oh man this guy's on point it's going to go a long way in making you look confident now another little tip that might be helpful is because you're going to be in front of a panel there's going to be multiple people that you speak to at the time so when you're sitting in front of the mirror looking don't just stare directly at yourself right that would be really awkward if every if if every uh question you answered you just stare directly at the chief look around to the left as though there's somebody sitting here and then look to the right as you're still answering and so there's somebody sitting over here and then come back to the middle and then left and right look around get comfortable with that so that you know what to expect so that you're used to giving answers while looking around and not just locked in on one thing and then finally the fourth way that i know of to the fourth best way that i know of to to prepare for this is to do a mock interview these are this is by far the best and bonus points to you if you have somebody that works in the fire service that's willing to do this with you and take the time and ask you questions and take this seriously because they might have a little bit more insight into what chiefs or officers would be thinking when they ask these questions but if you don't have anybody like that that's fine try and find somebody that is um in a position where they do have to hire people in a position where they do do interviews have them sit down with you and the exact same thing like you did in the mirror instead of staring at yourself in the mirror um sit down with them sit across from them set up two other you know chairs across the other side of the table and answer questions looking to the side if you don't have somebody that has interviewing experience as an interviewer has hired people that's okay just find anybody that will take this serious the point is to get as many repetitions in as you can so that when the time comes and you're in there you feel ready and prepared so what to wear i'm talking a lot so i gotta take a break i gotta get some water um if you've watched excuse me if you've watched any of the other videos on this channel you've heard me talk a lot about the importance of how you present yourself and why that is so important especially for these 10 15 20 minutes in the interview the clothes you wear are an outward expression of how you feel about yourself of how you see yourself fitting out in society in the group whatever so showing up and wearing uh clothes that present yourself as a professional is really important so to really shorten this the best thing i can tell you is if you're going to a firefighter interview wear a suit and a tie now i've gotten a lot of pushback from people saying well i'm not really a suit kind of guy i'm not really a thai kind of guy i don't really care what kind of guy you are it's not about you it's about the group if you're going to be showing up and everybody in the room is wearing a tie except for you it will be noticed okay wear a suit if you don't have a suit go buy a suit inevitably you will wear it again at some point you'll go to a wedding you'll go to a funeral you'll go to whatever if you really are that against buying a suit or maybe you're in a position where you can't afford to buy a suit or something like that at the very least wear a shirt and tie i don't care if you don't like ties wear one because when you when you when you join the fire service you're going to get a set of class b's and class a's and guess what everybody in class b's and class a's has a tie so get used to it um if you're a girl i'll full disclosure i am not an expert with women's clothes but a couple guidelines i would give a woman is if if you're wearing a skirt make sure it's at least knee length a big mistake that you would make is if you come in there in something that is revealing or provocative or something like that that will not be taken well make sure you wear navy gray and this goes for the guy suits too navy's grays those are all safe colors just very professional very uh business professional let's just let's just keep it there like i talked about before guys no facial hair okay you might have a mustache and you think it's cool and you think it's silly and while there's other firemen with mustache shave it okay a lot of places with their fire academies um are going to re require that you are clean-shaven from the start some places don't care once you get on the department and they're in their their their guidelines allow for that for you to have facial hair maybe a little bit longer hair or whatever that's fine but in the meantime like i said before don't offend the sensibilities of the group you're trying to join chances are everybody that's going to be up there maybe they'll have a mustache but that's probably it so be clean cut okay so that's everything that i have in a nutshell as far as what to expect and how to prepare before this starts now we're going to go over you sit down what happens for these 20 minutes and the best thing that i can give you guys is actual questions that you'll probably be asked and actual answers to those questions so that's what this section is going to be this section is going to be all about what's going on when you're there in the interview and one of the things that i found helpful at least this is how my brain works and maybe maybe this works for you too is i like to categorize things um i break down all the questions you'll get into four different categories i have who questions what questions why questions and how questions now who questions are questions that ask about you who are you uh what's your story what's your past what past experiences have you had they want to find out about who you are because again remember like i talked about you as of right now you're just a name on a list they want to find out about you as an individual because they're going to be inviting you essentially into their extended family into their group and they want to make sure that whoever they invite to be in that group is somebody that would fit in with the culture of said group what questions what questions are questions that are directed at what kind of knowledge skills and experience you have what what are you bringing to the table what stuff do you know about and we'll touch on some of those here in a minute why questions pretty self-explanatory they're asking about your why the most common question why do you want to be a firefighter is a why question why are you here what took you from maybe you had another career maybe you're maybe you're 18 years old right out of college why are you trying to jump into this so so early those are good questions to ask when you're bringing somebody into your group and then finally how questions and these are situational questions you might not always get these but these throw off a lot of people now the situational questions or the how questions as i call them are questions relating to how would you act in a given situation if you're new to the fire service and you don't have any experience these questions are probably going to center around some sort of moral or ethical dilemma that puts you in a situation where you can kind of see both sides how would you go how would you react um if you have a lot of experience in the fire service and you've been in for five 10 15 20 years and you're making a lateral transfer or whatever they might center more on actual tactics tactics being something like you just pulled up to a two-story residential home uh what do you do where's you pull your first line where does it go it things like that they'll give you a scenario and you have to go through and you have to answer based on the experience that you have like i said though if you're new to the suffolk fire service they're probably not going to answer that they don't expect you to know that right off the bat they want to find out kind of how would you act in one of these moral or ethical situations so first question tell us about yourself let's well it's not actually a question it's more of a statement tell us about yourself is probably the most common opening to every interview ever and there's several reasons that they'll they'll start out with this question the first is they want to know what you think is important about you so if they ask you to tell us about yourself what are you going to tell them what's what's important enough for you to talk about in these 30 seconds minute two minutes that you have to answer this question what are those important things they want to know what those are to you it also gives them more questions to ask i know at the very beginning of this i talked about how um you might have the aggressive interviewer well they might not necessarily be aggressive but if you're sitting there and you let's say in your let's say let's say in your answer tell us about yourself you say hey i used to work as a carpenter like i said before somebody else on the on the panel used to do that as well and they say oh really where'd you work who'd you work for things like that it gives them more questions to ask to just find out a little bit more about you so tell them about yourself is just kind of an open invitation for you to start talking they might pick questions out of there and then third it's just an easy question to open up with right this is already kind of a stiff uh format stiff scenario going into an interview it could be a little tense hey hey mike or i'll use myself hey mike nice to meet you tell me about yourself what are you about okay so how do you answer it the easiest way i like to think about answering this question is if you've ever watched an nfl game or a baseball game or a basketball game or whatever soccer game and they go to halftime what do they do before they cut to the commercials they have maybe a 10 20 30 second highlight reel of all the major plays and all the big things that happened in the first half or whatever think of your life like that if you're in your mid-20s think back to maybe about high school when you left high school if you're in your 30s think about your adult life after high school and pick out two or three major events things like your education things like your relevant job experience maybe you were in the military something like that talk about those two or three things now i will i will warn you not to get really really wordy about stuff don't drone on and on this this question should be able to be answered in 30 seconds at most a minute if you start going two three four five minutes and you're still telling this big long story about your life nobody cares that much okay it's just an opening question they want to know what the highlights are and they want to move on so that is just a quick primer on tell us about yourself next most common question and i can almost guarantee you will get this at some point in your interviews is why do you want to be a firefighter so they are asking you this question to assess a couple things they're trying to figure out what are your motivations and why are you there are you there for the right reasons which by the way there are no right reasons um what brought you there what are you doing here things like that that's why they're asking this question so this is a really really important question though because this answering this question correctly can set you up for success for the rest of the interview so how are you supposed to answer you heard me talk before about being unique and memorable in this question this is your prime opportunity to be unique and memorable the reason being almost every single person that has come through that interview has said the exact same thing to this question which is i'm here because i want to help my community i'm here because i want to give back to my community i'm here because i like to help people i'm here because right those are all the exact same answers and that is the most cliche and generic answer ever and it's not necessarily a bad answer it might be 100 true and that's that's good because you're going to have to help people but every single person that comes through there says the same thing and put yourself in the position of an interviewer if you're interviewing 30 people or hell not even 30 people if you're interviewing 10 people that day and you're on interview number eight and you ask this question why do you want to be a firefighter and the eighth guy or the eighth girl in a row comes in and says i want to get back to the community well okay yeah you and literally everybody else on this list this is your opportunity to be unique and memorable this is an easy way to do it so how do you do that connect your answer to a life experience that you had so i'll give you an example i knew a guy who when he was a teenager his father passed away of cancer and he told me the story about when he was a teenager his dad was on at home hospice and they called 9-1-1 because it was it was going to be about that time and the firefighters wherever he lived at that at that time they had firefighters and paramedics they showed up and he said they were so nice and careful and cared so much for his dad and he was he was just he was just stunned in shock that these complete strangers people that he didn't even know in the middle of the night treated his dad like that was their own father and after he saw that he knew for himself that's a part of that's a group i want to be a part of and that's why i want to be a firefighter because i want to be able at some point in the future to do that for somebody else what an awesome answer that is that's an awesome answer for several reasons number one unfortunately so many people's lives have been touched by cancer either personally or they know somebody family member friend whatever that has been touched by cancer so almost everybody out there can relate to the experience of seeing somebody suffer from cancer number one number two you're connecting it to a story about how great the fire service is in this one instance is what made you want to be one of those people what an awesome way i mean my my my father passed away from cancer so if i was interviewing him and he told me that story he might not be a good candidate for other reasons that wouldn't be the reason he would get hired but i would remember that person i would not forget that person's name and if i saw his name on the list i would remember oh that's that guy so that what an easy way to make yourself stand out but maybe you're one of those people that don't have some dramatic life altering moment where you decide hey i wanna i wanna i wanna be a firefighter maybe you have a series of events or you connect the dots differently so i'll give you an example of my answer before i got into firefighting i was a soccer player growing up all i wanted to do was be a professional athlete i wanted to be a professional soccer player played through college played a couple years in the pros got hurt and that was the end of it and when i got asked this question why do you want to be a firefighter you know you did something totally different the truth was is when i stopped playing soccer i was trying to find something that was as much related as what i what i realized is i didn't enjoy necessarily playing the game of soccer as much as i enjoyed being a part of a team and working towards something and the the most similar thing i could think of at the time to to being on it on a sports team was the military or fire service or any sort of public safety so that's why i wanted to be a firefighter that's what brought me into it but growing up i didn't know anybody and i never you know as a kid i didn't watch firefighting movies that wasn't me i've came into this later in life so the moral of the story is though connect whatever experiences you have in your life to why you want to be a firefighter and turn that into your answer and that is the best way to make yourself stand out for this question next question what is your biggest strength and weakness again really common question i can almost guarantee you will get this at some point why are they asking you this they're assessing your confidence and your humility are you going to be a person that can stand can well not stand but sit in front of them and say i'm a good candidate and this is these are my strengths as a person or are you going to be the person that kind of sheepishly shrugs your shoulders through it also they want to assess are you humble do you think you're the greatest thing ever or do you actually have enough humility to realize that you're a person and you have weaknesses too the other reason they're asking this is they want to know how honest you're going to be nobody likes to talk about weaknesses nobody likes to admit that they have weaknesses i get it i don't you don't we all have weaknesses i have weaknesses you have weaknesses um are you going to give them a real answer or are you going to give them some nonsensical sort of like well i'm just such a perfectionist i try so hard at everything okay right that's that's literally what everybody else says don't say that okay give them some sort of legitimate real weakness but make it vague what do i mean by that the best the best way i can explain that is through through my own answer as well when i got asked this question the answer that i gave is that i had struggled with organization and that's true i'm i i do things very old school i have i don't i don't actually have it here in the room with me right now but i have a on paper day planner i've tried all of the apps i've tried all of those types of things and they just don't work as well for me as an as in the night before i physically have to write out what i have to get done organization was something i struggled with so i do it old school and it's it's it's a lot slower it takes more time it's not as sleek in whatever is having you know having everything planned out on your phone um but that works for me and so that's a good answer for two reasons number one most people can struggle with organization if you have even a semi busy life there's a lot going on it's tough to stay organized but number two giving that answer and explaining that that's why i do things as far as organization by physically writing things down is that shows that i'm taking action to address the weakness so whatever weakness that you give make sure you you address that because action is going to be king talk about what you've done and how you've you've you've battled to overcome whatever that weakness is now again like i've talked about before everybody has weaknesses but if you have some sort of major character flaw or you're struggling with some sort of major issue this is not the place to bring that up you know mental health issues um alcoholism uh depression things like that i definitely that's those are important things those aren't i'm not even saying that those are weaknesses what i am saying is is don't bring those types of things up if they ask for a weakness or something like that get those things addressed in your own time they're looking for things that are going to be truthful but also not really in depth you don't need to bear your soul to these people strengths same sort of thing though talk about something that you embody as a strength and make it something that is that is tangibly uh an asset to that department so maybe you have a lot of leadership experience talk about that the fire service is always looking for more good leaders and make sure you bring up an example and talk about how you actually embody whatever that whatever that skill is leadership i have a lot of leadership experience and this is a strength of mine and here's some examples of times that i took took a leadership role perfect answer strengths and weaknesses what would you contribute to this department also very very common question because they want to know that if they bring you into their group and they hire you you are going to be an asset so why are they asking this they want to know if you posses possess the knowledge and skills that that particular department is looking for most departments are looking for certain types of people or certain skills let me give you a really generic generic uh example one of the guys i work with is he knows everything that you could possibly know about trucks and cars it's insane he's a mechanic when the day comes that that this guy retires they would be keenly interested in someone that had mechanic type experience now that doesn't mean they're only going to hire somebody with a mechanic background but if somebody says like hey here's some here's some knowledge here's what i would add to the department i worked as a mechanic for 10 years that guy's going to stand out now there's no way for you to know what this exact department is looking for but generally there's going to be a set of skills or knowledge that they would prefer over just generic sometimes it's just they're looking for somebody with a lot of fire experience other times they're looking for people without fire experience just depends so what would you contribute to this department uh you're going to want to highlight your strengths your strengths skills experience and knowledge what things do you know what certifications you have what training have you gone through um what life experience maybe you have a ton of ems experience maybe you have a ton of fire experience maybe you have a ton of rescue experience dive experience if you're an area that has a dive team things like that it's important though whatever whatever you say that you would contribute make sure you can tie it back to that actual department again here's another example where where i work we're right up on the lake we're on we're on lake erie we're right up on the lake and we have a dive team um if you have dive experience bring that up because that's an asset to the department that you are actually applying to so tie it to that department and it'll it'll make you look a lot better so what are some potential strengths or things that fire departments would be looking for well i have a list here mechanical skills like i talked about the guy that i work with that's the mechanic those trucks and those cars break all the time there's always something going on flat tires oil changes uh light issues lights burning out it's just constantly something so instead of having to ship the truck off constantly every time something goes wrong he fixes some of the stuff in-house talk about mechanical skills if you have them building and construction skills you've heard me use the example of a carpenter several times if you understand building construction you are a asset on the fire ground guys that have trades backgrounds those are really really really good knowledge and skills to bring to a fire department i.t and computer skills as the fire service progresses we're going to get more and more into um tech we're going to get more technologically advanced computer computer dispatch systems uh reporting software um gps systems phone systems i mean hell where i work our schedule is all on an app like everything is done through that so if you have some sort of itu skills or knowledge talk about those because inevitably those will be needed at some point if you're bilingual if you if you live in a very uh like ethnically diverse area where there's a lot of there's a large segment of the population that speaks something other than english talk about that now what i will warn you is if you you know if you took spanish five years ago and that's all you know you do not you are not bilingual okay you have to be able to carry on a conversation with somebody that is an ethnic speaker of whatever that particular language is so if you're gonna say you're bilingual again make sure you're actually bilingual because if somebody on that panel speaks that language and calls you out on it and you don't know what they just said you are going to look like an idiot so bilingual it's a great asset to have depending on where you live you can talk about formal education now formal education is kind of a double-edged sword most formal education quite honestly doesn't matter if if i'm an expert in art history zero fire departments care what i know about art history they just don't care um but there are certain types of formal education that could be helpful if you have a nursing degree talk about that fire service is moving more towards ems if you have if you're an electrical engineer or a mechanical engineer or something like that talk about that if you're a physician's assistant right that's that's more um uh academic experience or formal education but i work with a guy that's a physician's assistant as well so yeah talk about any formal education that is actually relevant to the fire service though don't tell them about your art history degree because nobody cares and then finally public speaking now this one might be a little bit this one the other ones i've talked about are better but public speaking is something that is an underrated skill in the fire service what do i mean by that a large part of the fire department's role is public education you go out in the community you do cpr you do school talks you do community fire academies there's so many different things that the fire that the the fire departments and for the fire service in general does for the community they need a liaison to be the person to go out there and represent the department well if you really want to see a fire firehouse kitchen table scatter um let the officer come in and say hey we're doing school talks today who's who wants to volunteer to go talk to the first graders nobody wants to do that so if you're that guy that enjoys going and doing school talks and public events and things like that to say hey i have experience doing this and this is something that i enjoy fire departments need that person so talk about how you could be that person next why do you want to work for this fire department this is a question that i got yeah in every in every interview that i did uh why are they asking you this they're asking this because what do you know about that particular department and will you give a genuine answer or will you give some sort of nonsense so they want to know that you are potentially is invested and interested in them is they are invested and interested in you and that's that's a fair thing to ask because if you get hired by a department they're going to be spending a ton of money to bring you on they're going to be spending a lot of time and a lot of energy on you they're making a big investment on you so they want to know if you actually want to be there or if they're just another department on your list of departments to apply to you're just trying to get in and that's not a bad thing if that's what you're trying to do either by the way so how do you answer this question well number one is you have to be honest and genuine number two is you want to look for a connection to the city there's a guy i went to fire school with who works he currently works for the city that he was born and raised in so that's an easy one for that guy right why do you want to work for this fire department well because i grew up here i went to school over there and i lived on that street until i was 10 and then i moved to that street from until i was an adult right that's an easy i've i'm i'm i'm a hometown boy easy answer but what about the rest of us that work in areas or live in areas that we didn't necessarily grow up find a connection to that city so what about that city or that department is attractive to you for example when i got hired at the department i worked for currently the well two things the first department i got hired at i went to high school in that particular city i went to a private school so i i went to a school that was in the city that i used to work for so that was my connection to the city i kind of grew up here from 7th grade till 12th grade this is where i spent a large majority of my childhood so i know the city very well and i'm invested in the city okay good answer the city i work for now i think i'd only ever been to maybe two or three times in my entire life so how do you answer that well where i got hired one of my instructors in the fire academy was an officer where i where i work and so i said honestly the reason i want to work here is because i've been so impressed and this this was a true answer this wasn't me sucking up i was so impressed by him in the fire academy he our fight long story short our fire academy split everybody every group into platoons and for the entire duration of the academy you would be in your platoon i don't remember i think it was in platoon eight or seven i don't remember it doesn't matter the point is is he was in charge of my platoon so i got to know him very well and he was very impressive guy to me that was my answer i met him in the fire academy he was very impressive and if this is a place where he's in charge this is a place where i want to work sounds kind of like a suck-up answer and i'll admit it sounds it's it sounds like it but it was it was a true answer um so that was my connection so why do you want to work for this fire department find a look for a connection look for honest genuine reason as to why that department stands out to you and why you'd be interested in being there sorry i'm still talking a lot so i'm going to need some more water here in a second and then we're going to get into some situational questions all right first situational question would you ever refuse an order why are they asking you this they're asking you this is they want to know if you can think and problem solve for yourself or if you're a mindless robot that's just going to do whatever anybody else says without thinking the short answer to this is yes you should refuse an answer but only under very specific circumstances if it's an obvious threat to life safety you should refuse that order so that question throws a lot of people off because they don't want to say that in an interview because they they don't want the panel to think that they're going to be a problem a problem candidate a problem new guy anything like that but when you're on an actual fire scene the the the commanding officer whoever's running that scene only has so much of a view of what's going on so if you're in the back of a building and you can see something that's going on that that person might not know about they have to rely on you so even though they gave you an order to go in and do whatever if you can tell this place is about to fall down in a few seconds refuse that order don't go in don't put yourself or someone else in a place where they're going to die you should be refusing that order obviously that's a very slim strict circumstance but you might get this question and that should be your answer otherwise of course you're not going to refuse an order you're relying on the experience of these other people um they know a lot more than than you know so no don't refuse any other orders but that would be the correct answer to that situational question next situational question how would you react if you saw a co-worker steal well they're asking this question of you because they're trying to test your character they're also trying to find out if you'll do the right thing or if you're going to cover for a friend because think about the situation that this would put you in you're the new guy or you're the new girl in the department being a new person is always awkward and is it's uncomfortable you don't want to do anything that gets everybody else mad but this here again we're talking about a social or i'm sorry not a social and like an ethical or moral dilemma that you're going to find yourself in what do you do the answer is step three steps number one you'd speak to the co-worker in private because let's say you just finish up at a fire scene and you're doing overhaul on a house and you see somebody go into the drawer in the bedroom drawer and steal cash or jewelry or whatever that's that's a common scenario that they'll give you maybe the homeowner who's standing out in the front yard that just watched their house burned up asked him to go get that and bring it out to them you don't know that right you only saw this little bit so step one is you would say if i saw a coworker steal given whatever the situation was the first thing i would do is i would confront that co-worker in private i'd say hey i saw this what was that about and ask them to do the right thing because like i said you don't want to come you don't want to come flying at people even you don't know what the full what the full situation was ask them to do the right thing hey i saw that was that was that for them did you give that to them and if they say oh no i i just needed some extra cash tell them to do the right thing return that money return that jewelry whatever it is if they can't do that then you need to report that to your officer and that's the true thing that you should do as a firefighter people are going to inherently have a lot of trust in you and they are going to expect you to do the right thing you are going to be walking into people's very personal private lives you're going to be in people's homes in very vulnerable situations and if you can't be trusted you have no business being a firefighter you have no business working in public safety so that's the answer to that is yes you would report them but you would also do it properly nobody's looking to hire a tattletail of every little thing they come running to their officer to report but you also want to make sure that you do the right thing because it will reflect poorly on you it will reflect poorly on your crew your department and the fire service as a whole so that's how you answer that question what are the daily responsibilities of firefighter right there's there that's again another very common question that's something that gets brought up quite a bit um you know there's the old uh joke that firefighters nap all day and they just kind of sit around and eat and occasionally work out and things like that and some days that does happen let's be honest depending on where you work some days could be slower than the other than others but they want to know if you understand what's involved in just the daily operations of a fire department so in case you are that new that you're not sure here's some good things to to answer with uh you obviously you respond to emergencies that's what you're there for uh you train that includes working out that includes actual uh training evolutions hose evolutions ladder evolutions all that kind of stuff maybe you work in maybe your department does ems as well uh we do we do ems where i work and so we do a lot of paramedic and ems training uh vehicle maintenance again these things break constantly so they need to be maintained truck checks are done every single morning fire prevention maybe that's you maybe they have maybe your department or wherever you're applying to has somebody that's dedicated fire inspectors they go on the inspections they handle all that other departments split them up amongst the amongst the line guys and they have to go do the inspections but fire prevention is a big aspect of the fire service education personal and public maybe people come in for cpr maybe people come in for community fire academy maybe you're going and doing school talks maybe you're you know where i worked they had um they did they do this thing with santa every year where santa shows up to the event down on the lake on the fire trucks we have to drive them down there well that's a public appearance so we do a lot of that kind of stuff as well inspections already talked about that public services we do smoke detector battery changes car seat installations and people drop off fire extinguishers to us all the time it's just a general public service that's just some of the many things that happen in the day-to-day operations of a fire department things that you will be expected to do things that you will be expected to know how to do and know about so just write some of those downs and take write some of those down and take that going forward uh what is the primary role of the fire department this is a really simple short answer to protect life and safety that is the number one reason that firefighters and fire departments exist that is your job anything else like that big long list i gave you of of things that fire departments do all that stuff's good all that stuff's important but your number one priority is to protect life and provide safety that's it uh what have you done to prepare for this job so the other i talked earlier the other day i i heard the interview that was going on over the phone and this is one of the questions they asked and i have to say the guy that answered it watched it real bad um so if you are that guy listen here so they're asking you this because they want to know if you've taken this job and this process seriously i can't tell you how many emt and paramedic students come in and do ride time with us that haven't gone through fire school yet and just think like oh i'm just gonna show up and take a test and i'm gonna be on a fire department and they don't take the process seriously they don't take the job seriously at all they wanna know what you've done to prepare so what are some things that you've done think about that what certifications have you done did you pay your own way to go through fire school that's something you've done did you go to paramedic school did you go to emt school did you get a fire science degree what other certifications did you did you take did you take any other fire science classes do you have your bls certification your acls certification um what kind of things did you do to prepare for your written test did you study what type of inter if you're watching this guess what you're doing you're preparing for the job now you don't have to say hey i watched the one video on youtube from firefighter now you don't have to necessarily say that but you did a lot of practice and preparation leading up to that what type of physical training have you done even something as simple as sitting down and asking a firefighter to go go have coffee with you to just find out why they got into the fire service what the jobs like what they like what they don't like all those types of things just talking to other people in the fire service is a form of preparing now it's granted it's gonna be a weaker form but that counts have you done voluntary ride time with that department or any other department talk about that ems experience volunteer experience literally think back to everything that you have done leading up to then that you have done in preparation to become a firefighter and talk about those things again this doesn't need to be a super long answer you don't need to go on forever about it but these are just easy guidelines and things that you can touch on when they when you're asked what have you done to prepare for the job so those are the just the main questions i wanted to go over that's the end of the the middle section i'm looking at the timer right now and i'm almost an hour in and i can't believe how long this video is going um so for the rest of this it's going to be how do you end the interview what do you do um going forward the interview's over usually what will happen is the officers or whoever's interviewing you will say something along the lines of well this is all the questions we have for you do you have any questions for us before i get into that and you take another drink of water because i haven't talked this long for an hour straight in a really long time so actually before i go into the questions most places will ask you that if you're interviewing somewhere and they don't ask you if you have any questions don't start volunteering them okay if they ask you that at the end of the interview it's usually a good idea to have one or two questions and this is an actual video that i've done so make sure and i'm sure you've seen them popping up throughout the course of this video but make sure you look up here for uh the link to the video that i go more into how to end an interview properly you are going to want to ask questions now in that video that popped up wherever that is i give you actual questions that you can ask whatever questions you ask you want to make sure that the right questions you want to you don't want to ask silly things like well how much do you what's the starting salary or um things that you should already know like well how big is this city like that's easy you can easily find that in a quick google search if you don't know those things going in and you ask a question like that at the end it will reflect poorly on you so click wherever that link was and watch that find out what the actual you know example questions that i give you to ask as far as you ending the interview i've had people ask me do i need to have a closing statement yes and no you you don't need this big long ballad of of well it's been a pleasure and i this and i that and i look forward to just a very concise one sentence thank you all for for the opportunity to interview with you today i look forward to hearing from you in the future something along those lines short to the point make sure you're looking people in the eye stand up and shake people's hands be professional about it now i know well so this is another thing at the time i'm making this video uh people are still a little iffy about shaking hands let's touch on that um if it's obvious that they don't want to shake hands with you in the sense of their behind they put themselves behind plexiglass or something like that don't offer to shake people's hands but if it isn't obvious offer to shake their hand that's still our custom in our society whether you like it or not whether you think it's good or not or bad or not there's a lot of people that don't care that will still shake your hand if you're that concerned about it go wash your hands later now i'm not telling you to break any protocols or anything like that that's not what i'm saying but what i'm saying is is if you're really unsure just ask it's awkward for everybody right now this whole i'm not sure whether i should or shouldn't shake hands say is anybody opposed to shaking hands or is everybody okay with shaking hands and just offer because the reason i say that is because if the person interviewing you is expecting you to shake hands and they're okay with shaking hands and you don't or you don't at least offer it might be taken poorly it's the only reason i'm saying that so if you're really uncomfortable with shake hands don't don't do it but that would be my recommendation to you finally rules for following up so the interview's done you asked your couple questions you watched in the other video i gave you those questions um it's all over what do you do how long do you wait how do you follow up when do you follow up all that kind of stuff okay give it at least two weeks government agencies municipalities districts are notorious for moving at a snail's pace this process might go very slowly you might finish your interview and you might not get hired for another three or four months don't be surprised if that happens this process takes a long time does it need to take a long time i don't know maybe just depends um so give it two weeks if you haven't heard anything in two weeks what i would recommend is that you call the station and usually every fire department has a secretary or a like an office managerial type of person that sits to the front answers the phone introduce yourself hello i'm i'm mike uh i interviewed two weeks ago i was just calling to follow up and see if there's any word or if there's anything else i need to provide to all of you that person will either know or say no we're good we'll get back to you when we get back to you they might be useful or they might give you useful information and say something like well we're not letting anybody know it'll probably be about another month till we're done with with the rest of the interviews because who knows how many people they're going to be interviewing um or they might just tell you oh yeah no sorry we forgot all about that but give it two weeks before you call and do that now you might be one of those people that gets the city sends you something in writing maybe they'll tell you oh no we sent out the letters tomorrow so it should be here in a few days whatever it is give it two weeks do not do not get an attitude with that person on the phone it's very frustrating when you put in a lot of time and effort and work and you're forced to wait do not get an attitude with that person though and it's not their fault they have no part of that but if you do get an attitude with them they will remember who you are and they will pass that information along be nice be respectful so okay two weeks out if you go another two to three weeks i would probably recommend two and a half to three weeks and you still haven't heard anything then give another call because right now we're we're over a month out from your interview give them a call again say the same thing hi i'm mike i called before i was calling again just to follow up and see if there was any progress on that and at this point if they're really dragging their feet they might say hey we're not going to have an answer for another month or two so don't bother calling back and then just do what they say but that's honestly the process there's nothing really crazy to this give it a couple weeks every two to three weeks thereafter follow-up um they'll tell you eventually they will tell you if you don't get the job right they're not just gonna leave you hanging or at least they shouldn't um and yeah just go from there so finally what do you do if you don't get the job so like i said at the very beginning of this video um this is something most people work will experience at some point chances are you are not going to be hired at the very first place you ever apply to and ever interview at and then it's the place you want to stay for the rest of your career that's pretty rare might happen to you i don't know i hope it does but for most people that's not the case and so the way that people departments will usually let you know is they'll do one or two things they'll either send you a letter in the mail or maybe if they do things electronically now um that it's it's i call it a no thank you letter it just essentially says thank you for your time we've decided to move forward with other candidates and then that's your answer uh or somebody will physically call you and say hey thanks for coming out thanks for doing all this we decided to go with another candidate blah blah blah and they'll go from there when you get those letters or those phone calls that sucks um i have gotten those letters and phone calls before and it really bums you out especially when you put in so much time and effort so a couple things that i can tell you is the best advice i could give you and again maybe i'll make another video on this of how to deal with setbacks and things like that excuse me you're going to be frustrated and you're going to be upset do not take it personal okay depart departments are looking for specific people um and again this whole this whole process is subjective you might objectively be a better candidate you might have more certifications you might have more experience it's nothing personal against you nobody's out to get you quite honestly nobody really cares you know how you feel about this um so don't take it personally if you do take it personally it's going to start to warp you um you will become miserable you will become vindictive you will become angry and you will inevitably as time goes on and that keeps happening uh you will inevitably turn into and i i don't remember what video it was i i talked about there's this subculture in fire and ems of people that tested and tried for so long to try and get into the fire service and they didn't and so now they crap on everybody else's dreams and desires to want to get into career firefighting they're all the systems rigged you have to know somebody have to be friends with somebody that is not true do not become one of those people those people that do those things are the same people that got turned down by department after department after department after department who are now just miserable vindictive angry it's not me it's them don't do that and that's really hard to do so give yourself a day or two to be upset to be angry that's totally fine that's totally normal but the best thing i can tell you to do after that one or two day max period of being really upset is try as hard as you can to reflect back on what you can do better um that's the mature thing to do that's the risk mature response and maybe you did great maybe it was just a matter of you're a great candidate and you're awesome we just thought this guy was better we or this girl was better there's no real reason you didn't do anything wrong you didn't you weren't lacking anything we just thought this person was a better fit for our department that happens but try and try and reflect on yourself and try and reflect on your uh your preparation how you carried yourself and try and improve on those things that you know like if you ask yourself that honest that question honestly of like what could i do better everybody everybody has an answer in the back of their mind so um ask yourself that question and it's a tough question to ask right and these are lessons that go beyond firefighting and again that's it's a whole different hell there's books written on this it's a whole different topic for a whole nother time but that's what i would highly recommend that you try to do and then number three try again keep going i can't tell you how many people i have met and gotten emails from and gotten letters from and gotten comments from and messages from that have said i have tried for years to get hired and finally it happened what an awesome story and that can be you this this job is not just for certain chosen people you can do this you can work your way into the fire service but you have to keep trying and it's going to be frustrating and it's going to be difficult but keep going so at this point i'm an hour and 10 minutes into this my voice is going if you have any questions um please leave them in the comments below i hope you found this video helpful um i hope you find this useful if you do please share this video with whoever sorry if it was a little long-winded for you give this video a thumbs up if you liked it and subscribe to the channel and i will see you guys in the next video