When you are considering to dive into the respected firefighting career, perhaps after a few years in other sectors, there are a lot of issues that must run into your mind. Below is a quick overview of the top 3 common concerns among aspiring firefighters, which will hopefully stet your mind at ease.

1. Health and Fitness Requirements

Firefighting is among the most physically and mentally demanding careers globally. It is, therefore, a requirement for new recruits to undertake fitness and medical tests during their application process. Firefighting involves managing heavy, bulky, and awkward equipment. You should also be prepared to work in hostile environments with unfavorable amounts of heat, humidity, and unrestricted oxygen. Nonetheless, the level of fitness required to pass most firefighting tests are attainable by majority of applicants, and will be beneficial to you beyond the workplace.

In case you a few burning concerns about pre-existing medical conditions, it is advisable to contact your chosen FRS or consult a local occupational Health unit for more professional guidance.

2. Passing the Firefighter Psychometric Test

The best thing about any psychometric test out there is that it provides a quick snapshot of how you think and whether you are suited for the role in question. However, from an applicant’s point of view, it can challenging as you can later find that you were not successful and fail to know why. Accordingly, to increase your chances of passing the test, it is important to be prepared for it. In connection to this, here are a few things that you should remember before answering firefighter tests questions:

• Try to figure out what might happen as result of the option that you are about to chose—sometimes late consequences ca make it less appealing.

• Don’t try to over think. Just trust your instincts as this will be the answer that is most true to you

• Read every question a couple of times. It is very easy to choose the wrong end of the stick if you are in a hurry.

• Try to get some practice of similar psychometric tests in advance, as this will imply that you are much prepared.

3. Coping with long working hours

The role of a firefighter comes with the potential of working for several and unsociable hours, including holiday periods such as Christmas. There are also circumstances that you will be asked—on a short notice—to fill in to cater for emergencies. If you area already familiar with this type of shift work, probably from your previous employment, then it shouldn’t be an issue. However, if it is an issue, you should perhaps rethink about this career choice if necessary.

Bottom-line

Generally, there are a lot of things that you need to figure out during the application stage, but just remember that your fellow applicants will also be starting from scratch and exposed to the same tests as you. What’s more, most of the things are ‘hands-on’, so just prepare well and have the winning mentality.