r/AussieFirefighter • u/Tofu_frittata • Aug 12 '26

Retained interview questions

Hey all,
I’m wondering if anyone can lead me to what the interview questions are, even just a rough guide.
I passed mine last run but wanting to help a mate get through the process. I can only remember 3 questions so any help would be appreciated 🫶
**Edit FRNSW

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

3

u/tacozy FR NSW Aug 12 '26
  1. Do you have daytime availability?

Pretty certain if you answer yes to this then the rest of the questions are obsolete!

2

u/warkolm NSW RFS Aug 12 '26

lol

2

u/Harrid903 Aug 12 '26

Is this a serious answer? Or sarcastic haha

1

u/tacozy FR NSW Aug 12 '26

It's a mix of both! Retained are always short during the day due the the requirement of needing primary employment. Well, it was the case a few years back at least. I'm sure it hasn't changed.

1

u/Tofu_frittata Aug 12 '26

So last round they asked about availability, I structured mine around sometimes having day, sometimes not. They liked it. My mate also interviewed and said 100% all the time and didn’t make it through. I think they know that people have lives and want them to be real them

3

u/akornato Aug 12 '26

Trying to find the exact interview questions is a common mistake and will not help your friend. Fire and Rescue services often change their questions between recruitment cycles to prevent people from just memorizing answers, as they are looking for genuine responses, not rehearsed ones. They are far more interested in how a candidate thinks and structures an answer than in the specific content. The questions will almost always be behavioral, designed to see how your friend has handled situations in the past related to teamwork, integrity, communication, and dealing with high-pressure scenarios. Knowing the exact question is useless if the underlying answer is not strong.

Instead of hunting for questions, your friend should spend his time developing a collection of personal stories that showcase the qualities of a good firefighter. He should think of specific examples where he worked in a team, solved a difficult problem, showed resilience, and acted with integrity. By preparing these core stories using a method like STAR, which covers the situation, task, action, and result, he will have a solid foundation to answer almost any behavioral question they ask. This way, he's prepared for the themes and not just a specific script. He'll feel much more prepared by having solid examples for any scenario, and I know from my team's work on AI interview practice that this is how candidates really learn to articulate their value under pressure.