Recently a prospective professional firefighter from Vancouver, BC contacted me for some job interview coaching. As many times as I do this, it still never ceases to amaze me how ill prepared most candidates are for interviews. I suppose that’s why they have contacted me, as such perhaps I have a biased sample. On other hand, I saw the exact same thing when I was in corporate HR interviewing job seekers regardless of the position they were interviewing for. When it comes to job interviewing, it seems many candidates are not aware of their opportunity for improvement, for more details see my post titled, unskilled and unaware.

Anyway, we go over the firefighter job interview questions I have developed and accumulated over time in our mock interview session. While this candidate was definitely not weak, this candidate was definitely not stellar or strong. Below, are the highlights of what I observed in this coaching session. The mistakes I saw were ones I have seen repeated time and time again in interviews. Doing quite well with the technical questions but stumbling with very basic questions, shows that the candidate did not fully prepare for the interview.

“If you were ordered to ventilate a roof, how would you do this and what layers you would see as you cut through”

For example, when I asked him “how to ventilate a roof and what layers you would see as you cut through” , he answered perfectly. But when I asked this prospective firefighter, “Why do you want to serve this fire department? ” The answer he provided was ok and was really focused on him and why he wanted to serve this city. However, he did not mention anything about the department. And most importantly, he did not tie his reason into the job requirements. For example,

“I really like the cultural diversity of this city and would like the opportunity to serve it’s many different citizens. For example, I understand we have a large Chinese community here as such I have started a conversational Chinese class and would welcome the chance to use it.”

Or

“I want to serve this department because of it’s commitment innovation. I understand this was the first department in the province to implement thermal imaging technology to aid in search and rescue. The other reason is due to it’s fine reputation. My friend John works at hall 6 and has nothing but positive things to say about the department.”

While the truth may be that he just got out of fire academy would work for the first department who offered, you may not want to mention that. What the employer is looking for here is not a confession of desperation but evidence that you have thought this out and researched this. They have many applicants to choose from and wants to be sure that you have thought this out and you have done your homework.

“Why do you want to serve this fire department? “

So if you are asked this question, do some research on the department and provide some reason why you want to work for this fire department. Use the internet and research the department that you are interviewing with. You can be sure that this question will be asked.

The other area for improvement was what he has done since graduating from fire academy to help him succeed in this role. Basically he did very little and could not even articulate a good answer. I have written a post on this very topic of what to do while waiting for firefighter job openings, so make sure you check it out for more information. Anyway, we decided that one way he can improve his answer was to at the very least describe what he has done to maintain the skills he learned in firefighting academy. It would have been ideal if he had taken classes like scuba, climbing, or even a conversational language to help him better serve the community. At the end, we settled on things like keeping fit, tying knots, first aid, and so on.

Anyway, I just thought I would share my observations from this firefighter job interview coaching session I recently completed with you. Until our next post, we wish you much luck and success with your career goals.

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