If You Have Been Looking At Exhilarating New Careers You Could Undertake, Then Why Don’t You Look At A Career As A Fire fighter?
For people looking for Career ideas that are a tad more exhilarating than your standard 9 to 5 Monday to Friday Careers, then look no further than the fire service. Fire fighters supply us with a crucial service – they are out there every day placing themselves at risk in order to save lives. There are hardly any Careers out there that can boast to be as exciting and as important as fire fighting. If you are considering New careers, then here is some information on the requirements you have to meet to be able to become a fire fighter.
For obvious reasons, to become a fire fighter you have to be incredibly fit. Getting a job as a fire fighter requires you to pass tough fitness and medical tests. You will also have to take psychological tests. Fire fighters are normally the first people to scenes of accidents – there could still be people in danger, so fire fighters have to be able to keep calm in emergency situations and be able to make quick, potentially lifesaving decisions. The physical tests consist of things such as 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 asked to describe how they would manage such scenarios. This is to help ensure psychologically you will be able to cope with the job.
As with the majority of New careers, once you get through the recruitment stage, you will be put into training. Training for the fire service lasts 20 weeks, and is enormously challenging, both mentally and physically. Not only will you be learning all of the crucial skills vital to a fire fighter, such as equipment operation, including breathing apparatus and ladder safety, you will also be looking at fire prevention and fire safety. This will involve classroom training and you will be required to study and revise for this.
Once you pass your training, you will be put on probation for a full year, and you will be monitored closely to ensure you can cope withdeal with the job. Fire fighters usually work a shift system where they work 2 days on, then 2 nights on, then 4 days off, equivalent to a 42 hour week.
As soon as you are finished probation, you can pursue a well structured career path. This is great if your existing Career ideas involve moving up in the world and taking on more responsibilities. Promotion throughout the fire service is solely on individual merits, so you will need to work extremely hard if you wish to progress. The career path generally starts with advancement to lead fire fighter, then sub officer, then station officer. After that you may advance into areas such as regional director for the fire service, significant roles with a lot of responsibility. So as you can see, fire fighting is among the most crucial and exciting Careers out there, and well worth a look if you are wanting to do something better with your life.