For people looking for Career ideas that are a bit more exciting than your average 9 to 5 Monday to Friday Careers, then look no further than the fire service. Fire fighters supply us with a critical service – they are out there every day placing themselves in danger in order to save lives. There aren’t many Careers out there that can claim to be as exciting and as important as fire fighting. If you are looking at New careers, then here is some information on the requirements you need to meet to be able to become a fire fighter.
For understandable reasons, to become a fire fighter you need to be really fit. Getting a job as a fire fighter requires you to complete stringent fitness and medical tests. You will also need to complete psychological tests. Fire fighters are normally the first ones to scenes of accidents – there may still be people in danger, so fire fighters need to be able to remain calm in emergency situations and be able to make prompt, possibly lifesaving decisions. The physical tests involve things like equipment carrying, and enclosed space tests. These are to ensure you are physically capable of undertaking this challenging role. The psychological tests are timed tests that provide the candidate with written scenarios, and they are required to write out how they would deal with such scenarios. This is to help ensure emotionally you will be able to deal with the job.
As with lots of New careers, once you pass the recruitment stage, you will be sent into training. Training for the fire service lasts 20 weeks, and is extremely taxing, both emotionally and physically. Not only will you be learning all of the basic skills mandatory to a fire fighter, such as equipment operation, including breathing apparatus and ladder safety, you will also be studying fire prevention and fire safety. This will involve classroom training and you will be expected to study and revise for this.
Once you finish your training, you will be put on probation for a full year, and you will be watched closely to ensure you can handle the job. Fire fighters usually work a shift system where they work 2 days on, then 2 nights on, then 4 days off, equal to a 42 hour week.
When you are passed probation, you can follow a well structured career path. This is good if your existing Career ideas include moving up in the world and taking on more responsibilities. Promotion in the fire service is entirely on individual merits, so you will have to work very hard if you want to progress. The career path normally starts with progression to lead fire fighter, then sub officer, then station officer. After that you can advance into areas like regional director for the fire service, vital roles with a lot of responsibility. So as you can see, fire fighting is among the most essential and exciting Careers out there, and well worth a look if you are wanting to do something better with your life.