My Experience Taking a Firefigther Interview

I was in an interview 3 weeks ago.

Yes, a fire interview.

I figure if I’m going to be giving advice and tips for getting a job as a firefighter then I should be putting myself in your shoes… an action I immediately regretted because…

I hate firefighter interviews!

Well, interviews in general. I don’t feel comfortable talking about myself in front of people, heck, I’m not comfortable with public speaking as a whole.

I thought I would do fine and not be nervous seeing that I already have a job as a firefighter but boy was I wrong.

I did the interview in a department located in central California. The interview was on a Monday at 11:45. Being involved in numerous interview processes, I was a little skeptical about going at that time because I would be going during lunch time. It’s never a good idea to do an interview when the interview panel are all thinking about food.

I wake up around 8 am that morning. Get a cup of coffee and take a shower. I wear a black fitted suit. It’s not the most expensive suit ($200 I believe I paid) but it looks nice and makes a statement.

Included with my suit, I also brought a binder full of my certifications I’ve acquired over the years with also about 20 copies of my resume and references.

I arrive about 45 min. before my interview started. I’ve been a part of interviews when some of the interviewers were upset at the interviewee for not being there 30 min. early. I didn’t want that to happen.

There wasn’t any traffic.

The interview was in a big building that looked like their departments fire and police headquarters. I walk in and go to my left to the fire department desk, tell them who I am, then they let me into another room that was well-lit and another individual was there that was doing an interview as well.

I believe it was their Human Resources room.

There were 2 seats in the room. The individual was sitting in one seat and the other was empty. I decided to sit next to him and talk. We had a small chat about both our backgrounds and why we both wanted the job. He was called in for his interview, I just sit there by myself and wait for my name to be called.

I start to look around the room at some of the posters, pictures, plaques, and other things around the room. They had a picture of every firefighter employee that works there. There’s around 60 pictures.

I see a plaque that shows the departments’ core values.

Respect

Integrity

Honor

Tradition

Duty

Ethics

And so on.

After about 20-25 min. of looking around my name is called.

I’m nervous.

The gentleman who greeted me was a fire captain. A very nice man who brought me into the interview room. There was a long table with 5 interviewers. Four of them were firefighters, one was a business owner within the city.

I shook all of their hands and gave out my resume to each one of them. Like I said, I had about 20 of them, don’t want to go short during an oral interview. Like a normal interview, They were sitting on one side of the table as I sat on the other side.

There was some cups and a big glass of water awkwardly distant from where my chair was so that I would have to get up out of my seat if I wanted to get a glass.

One of the firefighters started immediately asking the first question. Each interviewer took turns asking the questions, no follow-up questions were asked.

Disclamer: I don’t rememeber exatly how the questions were worded or my exact response, but this will be to the best of my memory.

1. What have you done, including certifications and training, to prepare yourself to work for XXXXX fire department?

In my answer I talked about the experience I have as a firefighter today and how I am learning at lot working on an ambulance. My resume showed that I had an extensive background and certifications in firefighting so I wanted to tell them that I had experience with the medical side of things.

I also talked about how much I learned about their department. Such things like how many calls they run per year what kind of calls they run. Also I had an idea of what was expected from me as a probie Firefighter.

Keep in mind that I was REALLY sweaty at this time. When I started talking I wasn’t as nervous anymore, but I still sweat a lot in these type of situations, even when I’m not nervous. I don’t mind being in the spot light, my body on the other hand doesn’t agree with me.

I talked a little more about my experience and ended my answer.

2. Write on the whiteboard behind you 3 things that are important characteristics to the fire service in order of importance.

There was a white board behind me with a dry erase pen and an eraser. I got out of my seat a went to the board while thinking about what I should write on the board.

3 things?!?! It was a lot of pressure to think of 3 things and I didn’t have a lot of time. I didn’t want to just be standing there without writing anything.

Then I remembered that I saw a plaque when I walked in. I’m sure it would be smart to put those on the list… If I could remember what was on the list.

I remembered one of them and wrote it.

1. Integrity

Yes, I know it’s a little cliche but it is very true and would be hard to not put this on the list.

Ok for the next two… do I remember any more of the words on that list?

I begin to write:

2. Respect.

3. Work Ethic

I knew ethics were on the list so I decided to incorporate work ethic with that.

I sat down right after that and was told we would talk about those later in the interview.

3. Tell us a time when you had to make a decision that was unpopular with the rest of the group.

I think about it little but then remembered that I studied for this question so I had an answer for it. I talk about a story when I was a wildland firefighter and I was working as a squad leader. I had a handful of new guys on my crew at that time and I haven’t had a chance to see their athletic ability which I needed to report on for their monthly evaluations.

The squad leaders were given the choice to work on different parts of the mountain. I choose the top because I knew it would be a challenge and I would be able to see my guys’ athletic ability.

Obviously, it wasn’t a popular choice but it worked out in the end because all the guys did great in their hiking ability and I was able to write that in their evaluations. I gave a little more detail in my answer then I ended my answer.

4. Tell us a time when no one wanted to take a lead on a project and you stepped up to the challenge.

I didn’t really answer this one correctly, in my head at least. I just didn’t study for this question and couldn’t think of an example quick enough.

I told them a time when I was on a Medical Aid call and no one wanted to be the first to talk to the patient because we were almost off shift and nobody want to write the chart (the medical documentation that we write for every call) because they take long sometimes. I said that I was the one who didn’t hesitate to start doing my job and didn’t mind making it “my call”.

I know the questions they asked was for a project and not a call i went on, but I just couldn’t think of one. Not my best answer for sure.

5. Define customer service and how do you plan to exceed it.

I defined customer service in my own words. I remembered reading something somewhere that said great customer service can be defined as “someone who can adjust themselves to the personality of the customer”. I thought that added a little something extra to my answer.

I said I was going to exceed it by making sure I go out of my way to make the customer or patient feel as satisfied as possible. I gave a couple of examples from my past jobs.

At this time, I also start to notice that I am not sweating as much as earlier. Ya me!

6. Back to your answers on the board. What do those words mean to you and why did you decide to choose them?

I had a decent answer for each one of the words I wrote. I said that integrity was doing the right thing when no one was looking and how important that was to the fire service.

For respect, I said that it was very important in the fire service because by not showing respect to people is the #1 cause of arguments and problems in the fire service.

Work ethic is also important because sometimes there is a lot of downtime and you have to have the work ethic to be a go-getter and not just be lazy all day.

Obviously, I said more about each answer (maybe too much, I felt like I was babbling a bit in this answer) just because I felt that this was an easy question. I tried to end it before I babbled too much.

7. Tell us a time when you were confronted with an angry citizen and how did you handle the situation?

Because I studied for this question I was ready with an answer. I told them about a time when I was at the supermarket and a citizen came up to me and my partner and asked us why were we able to go shopping while on shift. Now they weren’t mad by any means but I could tell they were curious and wanted an answer.

I actually wrote a post about situations like this and an in-depth answer to this question here.

I told the interviewers what happened and what my answer was to the citizens question.

I think I rambled a little too much on this answer as well. I noticed I was doing it and cut my answer short.

8. What do you know about XXXXX department and why do you want to work here?

Ehh I kind of answered this question in my first answer. I didn’t think they would ask this question. Since I already did answer this I decided to reiterate what I said before and talk about what I knew and learned about the department.

I went into one of the stations a couple days before the interview to talk with some of the guys in the department and was able to talk about my experience in the interview. I like the banter the crew had with each other and said that was a big reason why I wanted to work at the department.

9. Ok, here is the last question. The hot seat is almost over. Is there anything else that you want to include that you’ve done to make yourself a unique candidate?

I decided for this answer I would go back and talk about the 3 things I wrote on the whiteboard and show by examples how they are relevant to me. I also talked about how my experience and my current fire job would help me in this new department.

I made sure not to talk too long on this answer cause I didn’t want to end the interview by talking too much.

When I was done with my answer they told me I could finally relax and that the interview was over. I got out of my seat and thanked them all. After shaking all their hands, I was escorted to the exit and thanked for my time. I walked to my car, sat down, and took a very deep breath. I then decided to write all the questions they asked me so that I wouldn’t forget.

The whole interview lasted about 35 minutes which is pretty normal for a firefighter interview.

I loosened up my tie and found the nearest restaurant to get something to eat for all those calories I burnt in the interview.

So that’s it. I just wait to hear from them which can take up to 3 weeks.

I know I made a lot of mistakes in my interview, but it has been over 3 years since I was in an interview so I knew it was going to be far from perfect. If you would like to see more post like this and subscribe to my mailing list then I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks for reading!

Update: Sad to say I didn’t get the job. If you read the whole post then you might be able to see why. Not my greatest intveriw, but there will alays be another one.