Younger Isn’t Always Better
One department runs into trouble when only hiring rookies
By Scott Cook

I was visiting with a career firefighter friend the other day, and he lamented the fact that his department is short—extremely short—on personnel with the company officer knowledge/skill set. I asked him how they found themselves this way, and he answered that the HR department, with the full support of the fire chief, decided they’d just hire young firefighters straight out of the academy; this way they’d be around for a while.

On the face of it, that doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Then you learn that the firefighters already on the job asked that the hiring process not go in this fashion. Their concerns were NBI’d (noted but ignored). Following the hiring, several firefighters who were eligible to retire did so, and others that could move on to another fire department did. The troops don’t have an issue with hiring green rookies in general; the issue was they hired them en-masse when there were other, albeit older, qualified firefighters in the hire pool. In spite of the objections from the troops, the chief chose the path of least political resistance.

Now, he has to face the music.

In order to correct this grievous error, the chief has decided to hire a select few experienced firefighters, and has tasked my friend, his subordinate, to find them (former personnel are not welcome to apply—obviously). Here’s the basic pitch: Come in as a firefighter; ride backward for a year, maybe 18 months, learning the way their department (chief?) does things while teaching the green-horns how to be good firefighters, and then promote to company officer.

Good luck with that.

While on the surface it seems like a good plan, it’s really a band-aid fix where a tourniquet is needed.
The first problem is the chief. Aside from the fact that a bunch of us already work for a chief who caves to political pressure, who among us actually wants to be in this position? The firefighters left have no trust in the chief at all. And the chief won’t change until his boss changes. And at that, if the chief were to leave tomorrow, he’d probably be replaced with the same type of person.

The second problem is the promotion. As soon as an experienced firefighter is promoted over one of these kids (no disrespect intended, that’s what they are—18-, 19- and 20-year-olds), the whole mess will end up in a fight over an alleged wrongful promotion. In a lot of places, to a lot of people, experience no longer matters. Time or a higher score on a promotional exam is all that matters. If you’ve done the time at this department, or got the highest exam score, you meet the minimum qualifications for the company officer and should be promoted.

The other downside to this situation is that the department’s call volume is relatively low. This in and of itself is great for the community it serves, but at the same time is detrimental to the firefighters’ experience and moral. The chief will find out pretty quick that the young guys and gals aren’t going to be around for very long because of the low call volume. Their feet are in the career fire service door and they’ll be gone at the first opportunity.

All in all, the chief, by taking the politically safe route, left the community and fire department with a sad state of affairs. And he’s going to have to hire a new round of firefighters within the next 18-months…

So what did the chief accomplish? In the end, he decreased—by a significant margin—the safety of his firefighters and their ability to serve the community. He traded that for political cover, and—for the most part—still thinks he got a good deal.

Scott Cook is the former chief of the Granbury (Texas) Volunteer Fire Department and a fire service instructor. He’s also a member of FireRescue’s editorial board.

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