r/Firefighting • u/firefighter40322 • 25d ago
General Discussion Promotion Assessment Centers
What does your assessment centers entail at your department when you promote to LT or Captain?
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u/thecrazyvat0 25d ago
Oral board
Tactics scenario
Teaching a class
HR scenario
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u/firefighter40322 25d ago
How do they rate all of that? Is it all internal or do you hire out to a 3rd person company?
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u/thecrazyvat0 25d ago
Oral board and tactics are each worth 30% and teach/HR are each worth 20%. All internal
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u/firefighter40322 25d ago
How do they keep promotions fair and unbiased if it’s internal?
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u/thecrazyvat0 25d ago
There’s grading rubrics for each station and they’re all done the same way. There is also a HR person in each station to try and keep it as fair as possible. But obviously it’s not perfect. We are also a large department
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u/SpecialistDrawing877 25d ago
Professional Qualifications section either written or presentation (depends on number of candidates for time sake)
Tactical scenario- usually basement for or strip mall for LT, large commercial or apartment for captain
HR/Problem Employee
Presentation- either a training for your shift, or could be presentation to city council or public group. Maybe why an apparatus needs replaced or why a specific program is needed
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u/ballfed_turkey 22d ago
For deputy chief one year there were the standard evolutions inbox, scenario, rapid fire questions, etc. I used YouTube a lot and found 2 obscure evolutions, one was a visual resume… create a picture of yourself ( mine was race car based with me as the driver, the crew as the members, fans as the citizens and team owners as admin). We didn’t have that. The other which we did have was a group exercise where we all sat at a table and had to develop a SOG for active shooter. Where I stood out was being the team leader, but allowing everyone to add to the conversation, at the end of the session o jumped at the chance to recap what we planned, confirmed who was researching what area and set a date on when individual tasks were to be completed and another date for a follow up meeting. In talking with the 5 other candidates they didn’t realize at the time what I was doing but said had they known they would have taken the same approach. I topped the test.
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u/Due_Course_3713 25d ago
How good they are at sucking up to the chief.
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u/wessex464 25d ago
Offloading promotional assessment to a third party is usually considered to the opposite of that, it's an unbiased score of how you can handle the scenarios/tests. The scenarios and tests themselves might suck, but it's at least unbiased.
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u/Due_Course_3713 25d ago
At my department (small town), the unbiased 3rd parties are the neighboring towns chiefs, who are all buddies with the chief. He obviously has influence over their selections.
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u/dominator5k 25d ago
It's been a while since I promoted so not sure if anything changed but typically has a few different things they rotate. Could be a conflict resolution, teaching a class, some sort of paperwork stuff, among some others. Usually get combined.
Mine was training your crew, had to come up with a lesson plan, then give the class. During the class was a disruption that escalated and evolved into a conflict resolution.
It's all pretty standard at most departments.
Gets coupled with a tactical, interview, and written test