Free firefighter interview guides
Everything here is written from the panel side of the table. No email required, no gate, nothing held back for the paid course.
The oral board
Firefighter Oral Board Questions: What the Panel Is Actually Listening For
Most guides hand you a list of questions, and the worse ones hand you scripted answers to memorize. A panel can hear a memorized answer from the first sentence, and it costs you more than saying nothing at all. This one goes question by question and tells you what the panel is really asking underneath each one, what earns points, and what quietly loses them.
Read the oral board guideThe ride-along
Fire Department Ride-Along: What to Expect and How to Show Up Ready
A ride-along is a working interview whether anyone calls it that or not. What to wear, what time to arrive, how to behave on a medical call, whether you are expected to pay for your own meal, and exactly what to write down afterward so it is still useful to you months later when you are sitting in front of a board.
Read the ride-along guideThe five mistakes
Firefighter Interview Mistakes: The 5 That Cost Candidates the Job
The candidates who do not get hired are rarely unqualified. They lose on things nobody ever tells them, because a department sends a rejection letter and leaves it at that. These are the five I watched cost people the job from a seat where I could see the scores, and what to do about each one.
Read the mistakes guideBeing written next
- The background investigation: what actually disqualifies people
- The chief's interview, and why it is scored differently
- Changing careers into the fire service in your thirties
Who writes these
I am Ryan Coffey, a career firefighter at the Port of Seattle Fire Department. Before that I spent seven years at Everett Fire, six of them on the hiring panel, where I conducted hundreds of interviews and was part of the process that put more than 100 firefighters into this career.
It took me five years and about 30 failed interviews to get hired the first time. Everything on this page is the information I wish someone had given me then. More about me.
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