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Is Volunteer Experience Equal to Career Experience?
Just a question to get some discussion going. The region that I live in has many volunteers that are also career firefighters/officers. The question always arises; Should a firefighter's experience as a volunteer be taken into account for promotion, hiring or otherwise with a career department?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michael Simpson on
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as many people have already stated experience is experience and as long as they have the same training it should not matter. i know several volly that i would want just like i know sereval that i would not want. just like it is with paid operations also, some people have it some don't. it should not matter if we are getting paid or not
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Permalink Reply by Jay Nicholson on
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I have been blessed in my life to have been both a career FF and a Vollie. Even though the VFD trained regularly, I did more training in 1 month at my career FD than I did in over a year at the VFD. That did make me a better FF. You can say that both are equal, but when the time comes for my coronary bypass, I want the MD who has the most training and experience cracking my ribs.
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Sorry, forgot to answer the question. Promotion, absolutely not. Hiring, depends on the dept. Some depts have more of an OJT as opposed to a rigid academy. In this case, then vollie experience is invaluable. But it may actually hinder someone who has to go thru a dept academy. Doing it their way or the highway mentality.
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Permalink Reply by gary doyle jr on
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i have been a volunteer for 14 years and i have to go traning just like the paved guys do .i dont have to be payed to do the work as a vol firefhgter i love doing it.by the way im from ks and if we did not have vol firefighter we would not have any fire department the money just not there.if i was asked to help a payed department i would do it we are bothers we need to work together.
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Permalink Reply by Adam Reardon on
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I am new to the site. I have been a volunteer for 6 years and full time for a little over 1 year. I love my volunteer dept but I feel like I have gotten more experience, confidence, and training in my year of full time than my 6 of volly. Not to mention I have noticed that guys who were my friends on my volly seem to have alot of resentment now that I do this for a career. Volunteer dept and people are great and should be commended for all that they do but you just cant get the same experience or build the same confidence that you do as a professional. I dont know where this whole thing of differant challenges came from but I have the same problems eg: water supply, manpower, equipment to deal with at both places. If a volunteer dept has that bad of equipment then maybe they should be looking for more grant opportunities that is where my paid dept funds alot of our nice new stuff.
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Permalink Reply by Fireyladd - Retired Chief Sharp on
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Jason, absolutely and I would suspect that in most cases it is taken into account . However, sounds like there is a story behind this question. When there is a position opening there is testing, interviews and evaluations that are performed to acquire the best possible person for the position. Volunteer experience or not should not be a prevailing interest. It should only be a particular addition to a persons resume and background.
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Permalink Reply by Jason Hoevelmann on
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No real backstory here. I have been in an area where many of the volunteer departments create a great deal of paid folks and we all stay on with our volunteer, (now most of them are combination) departments. Honestly, I do have a newsletter and I write blogs on here as well and this kind of conversation helps the writing process. I am somewhat surprised by the number of posts, and many are very passionate about this topic. But, there have been some great insight on this and it is very interesting to see some of the backgrounds of the folks on here.
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Permalink Reply by Mike on
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I think Jason hit it on the head with his reply. Just an example in defense of volunteer departments, the volunteer department I helped out in my spare time had more fires in two weeks than the majority of the career fire departments in the county had in 3 months. And the county I live in has a lot of big municipalities! We averaged 3 fires a week! Had a fire bug that's still on the lose!(but you will be caught) The whole point is I gained a lot of experience in a small town due to the frequency of working fires and limited resources! If you could put out fires with the equipment in that small town, you could put out a fireworks factory with a water bottle and a shield! Lol! Fire is fire, there are no career fires and volunteer fires, just fire! Experience is experience! I think it should be up to the department if they want to use experience from another department be it career or volunteer! I must admit, I'm sick of the who's better debate! We're all firefighters we're all family and fire burns volunteers as well as us career guys!
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Permalink Reply by Timothy D. Stone Jr on
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The experience is undocumented. My training and certifications are kept at the the fire hall, and are kept in a data base in the state fire academia and online (sorry not a good speller) So should my time and trainin not be counted...bull i have documentation on everying thing i have done.
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Amazing. We are crashing into each other in intersections, we are dying in training events, and we are dying at a rapid rate due to cardiac illness and once again we find ourselves worried and debating the whole volunteer vs. paid deal. Folks the horse died a few years ago, stop beating it.
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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There is far more connected to the title, training and experience than just a paycheck. I would refer the two of you back one page to Damnthing and FETC's response.
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Permalink Reply by Jake Fireman on
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Damnthing...
Make it easy
NOT THE SAME!
Jake
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