becoming a firefighter in fort worth

[landwert]

I live in fort worth and want to become a firefighter. I have called around all day and keep getting mixed advice on how to become a firefighter. Do I go to a college, just apply when a city is hiring, or what? Can someone please give me some advise. Thank You

[TechGuy]

http://www.fortworthgov.org/fire/info/default.aspx?id=2570&ekmensel=168_submenu_830_link_ 1

[TC33FF]

Go get you FF cert from Tarrant County Com College. And then get your Paramedic. At least you can still get a job with a FD around FW and still test every year with them. FW is hard to get on with.A couple thousand people apply every year. So keep your options open. It might take a few times to get the "dream job" of where you really want to be. CHris

[TC33FF]

IM me if need any other help. Chris

[agavegrove]

I live in fort worth and want to become a firefighter. I have called around all day and keep getting mixed advice on how to become a firefighter. Do I go to a college, just apply when a city is hiring, or what? Can someone please give me some advise. Thank You

I posted some stuff on another thread about FW. Apply, take the test, score high, and be doing some PT so you're ready for the physical agility. That'll get your foot in the door. To prepare for the test, get ARCO's firefighter test prep book, 15th edition. It's the one with material like what's on FW's test. Also, test around everywhere. Take other departments' physical agilities.

It may not hurt to enroll in a fire/EMT course and at least get your EMT-Basic. FW doesn't require you to have them to apply, but it looks better come interview/background time. Most people I've talked to tried 2-3x at FW before they got hired. Some more, some less. Not really much different from anywhere else you go. The trick is scoring high on the written test - as high as possible.

[miked2424]

Do both, go to college for a firefighter certification and apply.

Practice written tests.. the more and more I apply, I'm noticing mostly your score and rank is how well you do on the written exams.

[trevolp]

agavegrove and myself were both recently hired by fort worth and start soon. i would personally recomend all of the above options. anyone who knows me knows i am a proponnent of college, but i will state that you do not need college to be a firefighter. i personally did prior to testing for departments. and as for testing prep, the arco book that agavegrove recommended is excellent but i greatly prefer the Encyclopedia of Firefighter Exams from fireprep.com over any other book i have used. this is just a matter of personal opinioins and the encyclopedia is not as well advertised as arco. if needed i will expand on why i have this opinion. rumor is there will be another test somewhere between october and january so just start preparing and ace it.

After you ace the exam and kill the physical ability. focus focus focus on the interview. once you get to the interview, it truely is sink or swim then. as stated before, interview is 100% of the determining factor of getting a job, you have to be a salesman. always confident and never cocky. find people to do mock interviews with you. tape record yourself to see how bad you sound or how bad of an accent you have in my case. if you use all your resources then you will be a fort worth firefighter very soon.

also, keep your nose clean, you don't want something on a background check costing you a job.

[agavegrove]

agavegrove and myself were both recently hired by fort worth and start soon. i would personally recomend all of the above options. anyone who knows me knows i am a proponnent of college, but i will state that you do not need college to be a firefighter. i personally did prior to testing for departments. and as for testing prep, the arco book that agavegrove recommended is excellent but i greatly prefer the Encyclopedia of Firefighter Exams from fireprep.com over any other book i have used. this is just a matter of personal opinioins and the encyclopedia is not as well advertised as arco. if needed i will expand on why i have this opinion. rumor is there will be another test somewhere between october and january so just start preparing and ace it.

After you ace the exam and kill the physical ability. focus focus focus on the interview. once you get to the interview, it truely is sink or swim then. as stated before, interview is 100% of the determining factor of getting a job, you have to be a salesman. always confident and never cocky. find people to do mock interviews with you. tape record yourself to see how bad you sound or how bad of an accent you have in my case. if you use all your resources then you will be a fort worth firefighter very soon.

also, keep your nose clean, you don't want something on a background check costing you a job.

Class 66! Yeah!! 16 more days!

Trevolp is right about the Encylopedia from fireprep.com. I got that one too and it's great. In fact, I liked it better than some of the more common test preps. Everything else is like he said.

As far as advice on the board, pay attention to all of it. CaptBob, BCLepore, jaydudley are also guys to pay close attention too.