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Jan 8 •
What This Community Is (and Is Not)
If you’re here looking for shortcuts, test answers, or rank without responsibility, this probably isn’t your place. This community exists for firefighters and fire officers who take their career seriously—those who want more than the next promotion and understand that leadership is built long before the badge changes. Who This Community Is For This group is for: - Firefighters preparing for their first officer role - Newly promoted officers looking for guidance and confidence - Experienced officers who want to sharpen their leadership - Fire service professionals who value mentorship, discipline, and growth If you believe leadership is something you train, not something you assume, you’re in the right place. The Problem Most Firefighters Face: The fire service does a good job teaching tactics and policy. It does a poor job mentoring leaders. Most firefighters are promoted with: - A test score - A badge - A rule book But very little guidance on: - Leading former peers - Making hard decisions under pressure - Handling conflict, doubt, and responsibility - Building a career that lasts—not one that burns out - This community exists to fill that gap. Why This Community Exists After more than 30 years in the fire service—serving from firefighter to chief officer—I’ve seen the same pattern repeat itself: Good firefighters struggle as new officers not because they lack ability, but because they lack mentorship. This community was built to provide what many of us never had: - Honest guidance - Real-world leadership discussion - Career perspective - Accountability - Not theory. Not ego. Experience. What Makes This Community Different This is not: - A passive course you watch once - A motivational quote feed - A rank-based ego contest This is: - An interactive mentorship community - Experience-based leadership discussions - Career guidance you can actually apply - A place where questions are encouraged - A space where growth is expected
Pinned
Jan 4 •
START HERE — READ THIS FIRST
Welcome to Firefighter Career Connection. If you’re here, it’s because you’ve decided to stop guessing and start building your fire service career with purpose. This is not a social group.This is not a motivation feed.This is a working career community. It is led by Roger Waters, a retired fire chief with 32 years of experience hiring, training, mentoring, and promoting firefighters. Don't let this first post stress you. It's long but covers the core of this community and also helps me to know you and improve our community by understanding what the priorities are for you. take your time and work through this. If you do the work, this group will change the trajectory of your career. ⚠️ Before You Go Any Further — Understand This Most firefighter candidates and young firefighters fail or stall not because of lack of effort, but because of: - No structure - No feedback - No accountability - No experienced guidance This community exists to fix that. But it only works if you participate. ✅ STEP 1 — INTRODUCE YOURSELF (REQUIRED) Go to the Introductions section and post the following: Answer all 4 questions: 1️⃣ Where are you right now? - Aspiring firefighter - In testing / hiring - Probationary firefighter - Early-career firefighter 2️⃣ What department, city, or region are you targeting (or currently serving)? 3️⃣ What is your single biggest challenge right now?(CPAT, written exam, interviews, discipline, direction, confidence, etc.) 4️⃣ What do you want to accomplish in the next 90 days? 👉 Keep it honest. No long stories needed. 🧭 STEP 2 — SET YOUR 90-DAY FOCUS - Download your 90 Day Plan its attached to this post. Trying to fix everything at once leads to nothing getting fixed. Write this down (or comment below): My #1 career goal for the next 90 days is: Examples: - Pass the CPAT - Get hired - Improve interview performance - Build strong probation habits This goal will guide how you use this group. 🔥 STEP 3 — COMMIT TO THE PROCESS
10d •
Think about your career in 5-year blocks
Thirty-one years went by faster than I can explain. The people who ended their careers well weren’t lucky — they planned in blocks. Years 1–5: learn the job, build your reputation, get healthy habits locked in. Years 5–10: specialize — hazmat, tech rescue, medic, instructor. Years 10–20: promote if that’s your path, mentor either way. Years 20+: protect your body, know your pension math cold, and build what comes after the fire service — because there is an after. \ Start planning your last day on your first day. It’s not cynical. It’s how you make sure the job gives back as much as it takes.
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12d •
Your background check already started
Not when you apply. Now. Today. Background investigators pull your driving record, your credit, your social media going back years, and they call people you forgot you knew. The post you made at 19 and the unpaid ticket from two years ago are both sitting there waiting. What you can do about it: clean up what’s fixable — pay the tickets, handle the debts, scrub the posts. And for what’s not fixable, tell the truth. Departments hire people with mistakes in their past every day. They don’t hire people who lie about them, and the polygraph is where clean-looking stories go to die. Got a background question you’ve been afraid to ask? Ask it here. No judgment — better to hear it from me than from an investigator.
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12d •
The 24-hour shift sounds great until you live it
Every candidate loves the schedule on paper. Ten shifts a month. Twenty days off. Here’s the part the recruiting posters skip. You’ll work Christmas mornings. You’ll miss birthdays, games, and recitals. Your sleep gets wrecked in ways that take years to understand. Your family serves alongside you whether they signed up or not — and they need to know that before you take the badge, not after. The other side is real too: twenty days off a month, a crew that becomes a second family, and a career where no two shifts are the same. Both things are true. Go in with your eyes open.
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Firefighter Career Connection
A Clear Path to Getting Hired—and Building a Fire Service Career That Lasts
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