All right I just had a young man visit me at the fire hall.  Never met him before in my life, and he had just found out about my service and my involvement with firefighter recruits.  This guy worked at one of the local car dealerships as a mechanic.  His question was “What courses should I be taking to improve my chances of being hired”.  My first question is always do you have your NFPA 1001 or your Pre-Service Firefighter Certification?  His reply was that he had already obtained his NFPA 1001 as well as all the other general list of qualifications such as D Z Licence, CPR – First Aid etc.

Well I was already doing some calculations in my head – he had all of his minimum qualifications, he has 7 years life experience working in the real world as a mechanic.  Which means he is all ready convinced me that he is good working with his hands, employable, reliable, understands a good days work, and able to learn new things because as we all know the car industry changes all the time when it comes to technology, and their way of doing things.  

So my second question to him was what are your hobbies, what do you like to do?  He answered back and said, “I love cars”.  I said “That’s Perfect!

He looked at me like I had two heads.  I than suggested that he maybe start to combine his love of cars and his knowledge of cars and focus on vehicle extrication.  Why not become the go-to-guy when it comes to cutting edge technology in vehicles such as Hybrid cars, safety systems such as air bags, seat belt pre-tensioners, ROPS (Roll over protection devices), terminology used to indicate these systems and alternate fuel sources, such as electric and hydrogen cars, etc.
His eyes were lighting up, and I could tell this was something he was very interested in.  He told me that he had already given the fire department a mini crash course/demonstration regarding the Hybrid cars.  

To make a long story short, this recruit has since taken every available course offered by his car dealership regarding all new car technology (Didn’t cost him a cent), as well enrolled in several vehicle extrication courses.  To me he just enabled himself in both his current job and as a recruit not too mention gave himself what I like to call the X Factor on his resume.

Fire departments find a lot of value in having someone on the fire department who is educated, and accomplished in one specific aspect of firefighting, rather than having someone who is incompetent and inadequate in several areas.  I will have to elaborate on this at another time, in another blog.  

I’m sure this has shed some light on how you can start too achieve some depth in your resume, improve your current life and work status as well as how to think out side the box.