NVFC Launches new Junior Firefighter Recruitment Video

The National Volunteer Fire Council has launched a new recruitment video aimed at attracting young people to the volunteer fire service. Funded by a grant from Tyco, the video shares testimonials from several existing junior firefighters, leveraging the power of referral from these young adults.

The NVFC page that introduces the new resource also includes insight for marketing your local junior firefighter program: http://juniors.nvfc.org//itemDetails.php?itemid=24

“Day in the Life” Shows Service, Sacrifice

This great video from the Pontiac Michigan Fire Department depicts a day in the life of their firefighters, from leaving the house and their family in the morning to returning hours later to their loved ones.

Tastefully done, I think it’s one of the best videos I’ve seen that demonstrates the service of America’s firefighters and recognizes our families who make real sacrifices on our behalf so that we can do what we love to do. I’m not sure of its origin or if it was created just for the video but the voice-over is superb and includes a great motivational message, apparently intended for this fire department that is going through some its darkest times facing the deepest cuts possible. We wish only the best for them in their fight to save their ability to protect their community.

Check it out and let the FireRECRUITER know what you think and be sure to share your fire department recruitment and promotional videos and resources.

FEMA Provides Youth-Based Workshops

Leading educators and scholars in the field of preparedness education consider our nation’s youth to be the best envoy for taking preparedness messages home to their families. In order to better prepare our nation’s youth to bring preparedness home, FEMA is providing technical assistance workshops to state and local practitioners who support youth-based programs and who are interested in integrating preparedness education into their offerings.

Can you rise to the challenge?

An article posted to FirefighterNation.com today outlines the challenges faced by volunteer fire departments in Pennsylvania in recruiting and retaining their members. Although these types of articles are becoming all too frequent, this one in particular is better than most in that it focuses on the positives of being a volunteer firefighter — not all the negatives. I’ve cited many examples of what not to say if you’re actually looking to solve your R&R challenges in a previous post titled “Is this our best approach?” Too often, we hand a prospective candidate all of the reasons and excuses why they wouldn’t join on a silver platter.

Stay Tuned for Tweets!

This is just a friendly reminder that if you’re not following the FireRECRUITER on Twitter or Facebook, you could be missing out on a lot.

While every article or reference we come across doesn’t necessarily deserve its own blog here on FireRECRUITER.com, we frequently dig up relevant information that we think can be of use to our readers and their organizations. In fact, we probably Tweet or create Facebook posts at a rate of 10-1 vs. official blogs here. See for yourself in the right hand column of our page titled “Recruiter on Twitter.”

When that happens, this just-in-time information is pushed to www.twitter.com/FireRECRUITER and to www.facebook.com/FireRECRUITER as well.

So, we encourage you to FOLLOW us on Twitter and LIKE us on Facebook to get the full scoop on recruitment and retention resources and issues in the fire service. And, while you’re at it, why not check out and subscribe to our partner sites: www.TigerSchmittendorf.com, www.RuntotheCurb.com, www.FirefighterStorytellers.com and www.FDLiveIn.com too?

Stay in touch and let us know what you think of our site offerings. Let us know how your agency is using these social media tools too!

FireRECRUITER Goes to Indy

Tiger Schmittendorf, aka the “FireRECRUITER” will be going back to Indianapolis later this month to present at FDIC – the Fire Department Instructors Conference – the largest gathering of firefighters in the world.

He’ll be presenting “Understanding and Motivating Today’s Firefighters” as a repeat performance of “From the X-Box to the Box Alarm” presented at FDIC 2010.

Here’s all the details from http://tigerschmittendorf.com/2011/03/07/x-box-live/.

See you in Indy. Look me up.

Walking the Walk and Living it up like a Live-in!

Photo Courtesy of http://www.RaisingLaddersPhotography.com

I’m so intrigued by firehouse live-in programs that later this week, the FireRECRUITER is traveling to Hyattsville MD — home to one of the longest standing and most successful bunk in programs in the fire service — and home to the X-Box Firefighters who created FDLiveIn.com. And to get a better understanding and appreciation for the program, I’ll be bunking in the station Friday night and they’ve arranged a tour of several live-in fire stations for Saturday.

Is this the ultimate bunk-in program?

Last week’s release of the highly popular article: Can you afford to live without a live-in? garnered a lot of attention and peaked my own attention to the idea. Thus, the FireRECRUITER has significant plans to connect with www.fdlivein.com soon to expand on this innovative concept and share success stories of staffing firehouses with college students or other appropriate team members who live at the firehouse in return for volunteer service.

Before we get to that though, I thought it important to highlight a particular bunk-in program that claims to offer the “ultimate college based firefighting experience” – the College Park Volunteer Fire Department – located on the campus of the University of Maryland.

The Art of Speed-Recruiting

Doyle Hose Co. 1 Fire-Recruiters Brian Sas, Colton Marinelli and Don Keuck engage students during career day at their local high school.

If you had just 30 seconds to convince someone why they should join your volunteer fire department, what would you say? 

What would your message be? Do you have a standard sales pitch that you use for just such occasions? Can you even say hello in 30 seconds? 

I recently had the opportunity to coach and practice some speed-recruiting exercises with the Doyle Hose Co. 1 in Cheektowaga NY. They had been invited to be a part of career day at the local high school in their response area and they invited me to join them. 

Venturing down a new path to the Volunteer Fire Service

There’s an interesting conversation started at FirefighterNation.com that suggests the BSA Venturing program as an alternative path for young people to get involved in the volunteer fire service.

The discussion host offers what he feels is a broader opportunity to get more young people involved in their volunteer fire department by not pidgeon-holing them into just being Fire Explorers and Junior Firefighters.

Here’s what I think. What do you think?

Discuss it here or discuss it there.