How Do I Find Out Which Fire Departments
Are Accepting Applications. Part 3 Continued
I'm at the City or County website, what do I now do? Go directly to the Personnel / Human Resources section. This can be found usually by looking under CITY DEPARTMENTS or JOBS or EMPLOYMENT or CITY HALL or something similar. Once there, this section will allow you to see if there are firefighter vacancies. Chances are, there are not. That's ok, you shouldn't have gotten your hopes up - you are in this for the long haul, and are using this information to better prepare yourself. If you happen to find a fire department is testing by chance, then consider yourself lucky. Besides current job openings, you can see if they take interest cards (which allow you to be notified when they are recruiting for a certain position, such as firefighter). You can also copy down their address, their business phone number, their 24-hour job hotline, and any other information you feel valuable. DON'T FORGET TO BOOKMARK THIS PAGE FOR FUTURE REFERENCE!
After visiting the Personnel / Human Resource section, what information should I obtain next? Now it is time to navigate to the FIRE DEPARTMENT portion of the website. Most fire departments have websites, and they can usually be accessed in the same fashion as the Personnel / Human Resource office. Just go under CITY DEPARTMENTS or PUBLIC SAFETY and click on FIRE DEPARTMENT. Some fire departments have a wealth of information to offer (such as the one I work for ( http://www.sccfd.org ) and some have a one-page home page that lists virtually no information that it makes you wonder why they even bothered. Some websites will allow you to complete much of your template just by visiting the website. DON'T FORGET TO BOOKMARK THIS PAGE FOR FUTURE REFERENCE!
What happens if I still don't have all of the blanks of my template filled in? I would suggest stopping by the fire department headquarters, since they will possibly have brochures or other information to provide you with, as well as knowledge of when there might be another firefighter examination. They might even have a person in charge of recruitment you could talk to or a firefighter working at the headquarters who could answer some of your questions.
How do you find out where each headquarters is located? Remember back in phase 1, I discussed that in the front of most phone books, there is a blue section that is reserved for governmental agencies, such as fire departments. Most libraries have phone books from around the United States for you to view.
When you first sat down to begin developing your binder at the library researching information out of the "blue pages," hopefully you took note of the fire department headquarters address and phone number. That will save you time. Once at fire headquarters, I would ask them if they could give you a list of addresses for each of their fire stations (many times you can download this information from the fire department website). I would also ask them for the business phone numbers of the fire stations so you could call the station Captain to set up an appointment. I would also ask them such information as:
Do you know when you are going to test for firefighter again?
When did you last test for firefighter?
How many firefighters did you hire off the last list?
What are your qualifications to take the firefighter test?
Do you take interest cards?
When should I contact you to find out more information?
Headquarters was helpful, but I still haven't obtained all of the necessary information. Now it is time to start visiting fire stations. Hopefully you have called to make an appointment, and are not just dropping by. Most firefighters are usually eager to talk to future firefighters, but not necessarily at a moment's notice. Most firefighters usually have busy schedules during the day in between running calls, and you stopping by might not always be at the best time. Even if you weren't able to make an appointment (because you didn't know the phone number), I would suggest stopping by a local pie shop and bringing a nice pie (homemade works too). This is to thank them for taking valuable time away from their duties, and ask them if you can talk now, or if it would better, could you set up an appointment for another time or day. That would usually work. Bring your binder with your template and be ready to fill in the blanks. Don't overstay your welcome and thank them on the way out.
Keeping track of information and your progress. - Many times, you will need to use multiple ways to fill in the information for each fire department. It might require you to visit city hall, visit a fire station, view their website, and maybe phone the fire department headquarters. Just like you want to back up any important computer files, or leave copies of valuable documents in a safety deposit box, I would think you would want to keep track of your progress.
A good way to track your progress is by using the fire department information templates you have already produced for each fire department. Since the backs of those pages are probably blank, here is a good location to list such information as:
Date you visited or phoned
Method of contact (phone, in-person, website, etc.)
Information you obtained
Person(s) you spoke with (you never know when you might need to talk to that person again)
When to call back or stop by again (this information would then be transferred to Chapter 3, which consists of a month-by-month calendar to list your action plan / to-do items).
