Making the First Impression in a Firefighter Oral Board Interview
How long do you think you have once you walk into the oral board to hook them into listening to your stuff? Many guess 2, 3, 6 minutes or more.
How can you make a really great first impression to carry you through the interview?
After seeing clone after clone after clone candidates, someone will walk into the room and BAM, BAM, BAM they set the room on fire! They nail every answer. When they leave, the raters say, who was that masked man? We want to give them a badge! You can do it too! I haven't worked with a candidate yet who couldn't do it. They just didn't know they could do it. Just minor corrections are usually all that is needed to separate them from the clone pack of candidates.
How long do you think you have once you walk into the oral board to hook them into listening to your stuff? Many guess 2, 3 and 6 minutes. You have 32 seconds. In that first 32 seconds of your oral board you come in with what's called the "halo" effect.
In that first 32 seconds the board is checking your appearance (the strongest nonverbal statement you can make is what you wear), choice of words, inflection, voice, eye contact and body language. If you open with a clone answer, you're dead meat.
There are supposedly six other areas in the oral board where you can recover, but don't count on that happening. Once you see the glaze come over the oral board’s eyes, you've lost them and they won't come back. Trust me. Please open using a signature story about yourself.
Candidates have about a 20-minute opportunity for a 25+-year career. The ultimate goal is to have the least amount of distractions in your oral board. Everyone has his or her opinions. It seems once a person gets hired, they quickly forget how hard it really was to nail that badge.
As well meaning as some people are, I don't believe anyone wants to be responsible for a candidate not being able to complete their pursuit for a badge. What might have worked for one candidate doesn't mean it will automatically work for others.
Since oral board scores are calculated in hundredths of points (82.15, 87.63, 90.87, etc), bad or incorrect information can place a candidate less than one point out of the running and put them out of the process. I have seen this all too often.
We would like to thank Capt Bob Smith for his article and insight. More information on his programs can be found here.