It’s a new year and a new opportunity to re-align our focus and our commitment to volunteer enlistment. This is the question I ask at the start of every presentation, class or simply conversations with others as passionate about the ...
Read More »Get Schooled on Recruiting High Schoolers
A recent online message from a firefighter friend prompted me to publish the recruitment insight I shared with him: Hey Tiger, I’m looking for help with our Recruitment and Retention Efforts . In the past few months we have lost ...
Read More »Recruitment Video of the Week: Perry Hi-Way VFD
This week’s recruitment video review comes from Perry Hi-Way Volunteer Hose Co. in Erie PA. While the video is very professionally done, I’m concerned with any public outreach that leads with the message that our numbers are dwindling and the reasons people ...
Read More »Coordinated Attack!
If you vent too early, oxygen is introduced and the fire can grow. Put water on the fire without proper ventilation and the trapped heat converts the water to steam and everyone’s survivability is compromised. A coordinated attack is critical ...
Read More »CRACKING THE CODE: Xbox™ Firefighters 14/04.20
In his article for Fast Company magazine titled: “4 Tips To Help Millennials Find Meaningful Work“, Adam Smiley Poswolsky makes the argument that young people want to do work with purpose: “They call us the lazy generation, the entitled generation, and ...
Read More »Where there’s smoke…
Where there’s smoke…there’s a Delaware Volunteer Firefighter! proclaims this web site dedicated to recruiting more for their ranks. Delaware’s recruitment clearinghouse site does a great job of getting the right information in the hands of the right people by sharing scrolling ...
Read More »Draft Choices
Volunteer fire departments, whether they realize it or not, compete for recruits. Sometimes with other volunteer fire departments but most often with a busy home life, other community organizations, volunteering opportunities and a wide array of social activities. What if ...
Read More »“VetNet” To Help Military Veterans Re-Enter Civilian Life
As we’ve shared before, recruiting veterans into the volunteer fire service can be a great solution to our staffing challenges. They might just be the perfect candidate as we don’t have to teach them discipline, respect, honor, loyalty, chain-of-command or teamwork. In return ...
Read More »The Jury is Out on Criminal Background Checks
As happens pretty frequently, I had a fire chief call recently to ask for some advice on what has become a bit of an arresting matter in his volunteer fire department. It appears that a prospective candidate for membership was being ...
Read More »Where is Recruitment on your list?
I just visited a volunteer fire department’s web site based on a referral from Facebook and was disappointed, if not dismayed, to find that “Recruitment” was listed at number 11 out of 18 options on their site’s sidebar menu. I ...
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