Some authorities say that in order to get that badge with your name on it, you should have most or all of the following:

• EMT certificate
• Paramedic license
• Clean drivers license record
• EMT experience on an ambulance or in a hospital — either full-time or part-time.  In most jurisdictions, firefighters respond to about 60% of emergency medical service calls.  Can you imagine your fire department wanting to hire someone who had no EMT experience?
• CPR for the Professional Rescuer (American Red Cross) or CPR Healthcare Provider (American Heart Association)
• Firefighter 1 Academy Certificate and/or Firefighter 1 State Certification
• Ambulance drivers license
• Excellent physical fitness.  Here it is best to get guidance from a professional.  Despite what you might think, weightlifting alone is no longer enough.  You must also have a combination of aerobic activities, cardiovascular activities, and muscular / strength-building activities.
• Volunteer experience.  Most authorities say it doesn’t matter exactly what kind of volunteer experience you have come up so long as whatever you do you have done it well.  Many counties and small municipalities are almost always looking for volunteer firefighters.  You might also contact your local fire department to see if it uses volunteers in non-firefighting capacities, such as administration, hazmat training, fire prevention, etc.  Whether you become a volunteer firefighter or a volunteer within your local fire department, these all help demonstrate that you are a well rounded person.
• Specialized training certificates.  These can include such specialized training as Public Education, Fire Prevention, Fire Investigation, Auto Extraction, Rescue Systems, Swift Water Rescue, and Hazardous Materials First Responder.
• Bilingual ability as many jurisdictions give preference to those who speak a second language.  The most common second language is Spanish.  However, if your second language is something such as Russian, you would most likely stand out from many other candidates.

Memberships and affiliations.  Don’t wait.  Start getting involved in the fire service.  An excellent way to do this is to join those organizations that will help you better understand what is required to be a firefighter and how to be an exemplary one.  These include associations such as:

• State Firefighters Association
• International Association of Arson Investigators
• National Fire Protection Association
• National Association of EMTs
• Fire Service – EMS Publications

More ways for preparing to become a firefighter

You can use these to educate yourself about many aspects of firefighting and, in some cases, to discover firefighter openings.  Some of the best of these are:

• Firehouse Magazine
• Fire Engineering Magazine
• American Fire Journal
• Journal of Emergency Services Magazine (JEMS)

1. Find out more about dentists by volunteering in a dental office and learn some of the aspects involved in being a dentist as well as different dental procedures performed by a dentist.
2. If you are still in high school, math and science are important subjects to focus on. It would also be helpful to enroll in college prep classes. Chemistry, liberal arts, biology and algebra are college prep classes that would be helpful to you.
3. In college, you don’t have to major in science, however, you must complete the pre-dental science requirements in the United States. Recommended college courses are biochemistry, organic and inorganic chemistry, physics and general biology.
4. In the United States, an undergraduate degree is recommended before dental school. The majority of students in dental school have had 4 years of college.
5. Find out about different dental schools and the requirements for admission of each. Most dental schools will offer you valuable information about what you should do to prepare for a career as a dentist.

The cornerstone of aviation safety is redundancy. So, in addition to two (or more) engines, radios, sets of flight instruments, etc., there are always at least two flying pilots. The first officer sits in the right seat and acts as a co-pilot. He or she has an independent set of controls and instruments to operate the aircraft and flies the plane about half the time, usually swapping duties with the captain each flight leg. The first officer assists the captain in preflight duties by reviewing paperwork and performing aircraft preflight checks. The first officer must pass many practical and written exams and must have a certain amount of seniority. As a rule, first officers have less seniority than their captains.

Some planes have a third position in the cockpit for a flight engineer, also called a second officer. The flight engineer is a usually a pilot but doesn’t actually fly the airplane. He or she performs the bulk of aircraft preflight checks, operates and monitors the aircraft’s systems during flight and makes aircraft performance calculations, such as determining takeoff and landing speeds, engine power settings and fuel management. The flight engineer position is also an apprenticeship of sorts, as it is the best position for observing the flying pilots. This job is now a rarity in the business: The positions are mostly in airplanes built before the mid-1980s. As older airplanes are retired, they are replaced with planes in which more advanced or automated systems perform the flight engineer’s duties. The position will someday be “extinct,” like the navigator and radio operator positions of airplanes from the 1930s and 1940s.

Seniority

The three most important things in the airline piloting profession are seniority, seniority and seniority. All domestic airlines use a seniority system to dictate your position, which plane you fly (which determines your pay) and what schedules you keep (which determines whether you’ll be home weekends, or far from your family, ankle deep in slush during the holidays). For pilots, seniority dictates everything!

In a seniority-based system, all pilots are considered equally qualified, provided they pass the required training and check rides. A seniority system prevents favoritism and other undemocratic practices from interfering with the career of a pilot. The drawback of a seniority system is that even if you’re ranked No. 20 out of 5,000 pilots at airline A, with 25 years of seniority and scads of overseas experience in large jets, you will be placed at the bottom of airline B’s seniority list if you have to switch airlines for any reason, including your airline going out of business. This means you would likely begin as a reserve flight engineer or co-pilot. Your experience travels with you, should you leave, which might help you get the new job, but your seniority does not. Hence, most pilots stay with an airline rather than lose the seniority they’ve acquired.

In the civilian career path, you can attend a college that offers a two- or four-year degree (some universities even offer advanced degrees in aviation) along with flight training toward various pilot certificates. Several universities in the United States and Canada offer courses along with flight training so that you graduate with a bachelor’s or associate’s degree in aviation along with a commercial pilot certificate and multi-engine and instrument ratings. There are also technical schools that offer flight training toward a certificate, often in less time. In both types of programs, you often graduate with an instructor’s rating, and you’ve built up some flight time teaching others.

An alternative to a professional school or college is to get your flight training piecemeal from a local flight school. It will take longer, and the level of instruction might not be as rich, but all commercial certificates are equal in the eyes of the FAA. The agency doesn’t care where or how they were earned.

Civilian training costs a lot of money. Basic flying lessons start at about $80 an hour, and you’ll need at least 250 hours before you have your commercial rating. It also costs a lot to rent large, complex airplanes for instruction. I like to think of the expense as an investment in a rewarding career that will pay dividends for years to come. Scholarships (full and partial) do exist, but most pilots will end up investing a lot of money in flight training.

In the military, you commit to many years of service after your one year of pilot training (10 years of commitment in the Air Force). You must also meet other requirements, such as college course work, good health and adequate physical ability. There are no guarantees that you’ll pass the military flight training on the service’s rigid time schedule, or that you’ll get to fly a specific airplane. In exchange for these compromises, the military pays you to train, and you get the best training in the equipment that an airline pilot would fly (complex jets).

A military pilot lives a military life, follows orders, risks bodily harm and uses lethal weapons. These aren’t things to take lightly, so if you are considering the military (and that is a wide field that includes the Coast Guard), then explore it thoroughly and see if the timing is right for you and your career needs. It is an excellent experience for many people. Some pilots even make the military their career.

After a pilot is certified, he or she will have to get more experience and flight hours before an airline will hire him or her. Because of the military’s service commitment, a military pilot will probably get a lot of flying experience before he or she leaves to join an airline. A civilian pilot, or a military pilot who needs more flight hours, may work as a flight instructor, then perhaps move to a charter company. From there, he or she might move to a regional airline and then on to a major airline.

Training

Once hired, regardless of your background, the airline will train you based on its procedures and its FAA-approved training curriculum. Even though all airlines fly the same kinds of airplanes, each airline has slightly different methods and procedures. The goal of an airline is to train you to be qualified in your position and to be standard. Standardization is one of the pillars of a safe airline. The concept is that, within the airline, cockpit behavior and procedure will be the same in every flight, no matter which pilots are at the controls, to prevent confusion and misunderstanding.

The initial training at an airline takes about 10 weeks. Basic indoctrination lasts a week or so. Training on general subjects, which include regulations and company-specific procedures, takes another week. You will spend two weeks on aircraft systems specific to the equipment you’ll operate. Pilots will usually specialize in one type of airplane, such as 727s or MD-80s, until they move to a seat on a different airplane. After systems, you’ll pair off with a training partner and have two or more weeks of simulator training. In the simulator, you’ll experience just about every emergency and anomaly imaginable. You’ll focus particularly on crew coordination and successful landing. All maneuvers are practiced until they are satisfactorily completed.

Once the pre-checks, oral examinations and final check-rides are over, you will have completed the airplane training. But you’re not ready just yet. Next you’ll fly with a special instructor pilot and get initial operating experience. This experience, which includes at least 25 hours of flight time, will teach you to integrate your newfound technical skills with the daily requirements of the job.

After initial operating experience, you face another flight test, called a line check. After you pass the line check, you are released to operate scheduled flights as a crew member. Airlines are now required to set up 100 hours of flying for you after a line check, so you can get immediate experience. After all that, you’ll want a vacation.

Additionally, a commercial pilot needs an up-to-date first- or second-class medical certificate, an instrument rating and a multi-engine rating. For you to receive a medical certificate, an Aviation Medical Examiner must verify that you meet the health and fitness requirements to be a pilot. You need to get an instrument rating to fly with low visibility (in adverse weather and in clouds). You receive an instrument rating by passing instrument ground school, logging a specified amount of instrument flight time (flying without visibility) and passing an instrument rating check-ride. To fly planes with multiple engines (most of the planes in commercial use), you need to have some lessons and pass a multi-engine check-ride. At some point, most airline pilots also get an airline transport pilot certificate. This highest pilot certificate allows you to be the pilot in command (the captain) of a large commercial aircraft. It requires that you pass a written test, have a first-class medical certificate, are a high school graduate and have logged 1,500 flight hours including 250 hours as the pilot in command.

To be hired, you need flight experience. Your level of experience is based on the number and complexity of aircraft you have flown, the quantity and complexity of the flying you did (jet or propeller, day or night, local or cross-country, flying with visibility or flying using only instruments, etc.) and which crew positions you’ve held. Briefly, in the late 1960s, some airlines hired people without certificates or flight time and trained them from the ground up. This was an abnormal practice, and it is unlikely to recur. These days, a major airline hiring a pilot with a freshly minted commercial pilot’s certificate (only 250 flight hours) is virtually unheard of. Most successful pilot applicants at major airlines have thousands of flight hours. Secondary airlines (regional or commuter) may have lower requirements.

Timing is everything. You could be the world’s most qualified pilot, but if there are no openings for pilots when you enter the job market, a good job will be very hard to find. It’s that simple. Unfortunately, timing is something we have almost no control over. There are no guarantees in the airline business. You won’t know how your career went until you retire and can look back at it. Boom-to-bust cycles in the economy are magnified in the aviation industry. Bankruptcy, furloughs, airline shutdowns and consolidation have been a big part of the business for years. It can be, and has been for many professional pilots, a rough career ride with many different employers and lots of changes in jobs, towns and seniority. A wise airline instructor at my first airline job told the class, “The future in aviation is the next 30 seconds — long-term planning is an hour and a half.” These are the truest words about the business that I’ve ever heard.

A person who takes a multimillion dollar machine, casually flies it off the ground and then safely returns it, fascinates people. They wonder what it’s like to be responsible for hundreds of lives or goods worth millions. When passengers peek inside a cockpit, they are amazed. They stare at the multitude of dials and ask incredulously, “Do you really know what they all do?”

Pilots are the focal point and end operator in a huge team of highly trained professionals. They are the movie stars of the air transportation show, because they are the most visible people to the public, while most of the other team members remain “behind the scenes.” But movie stars rarely die or cause others to die because of an on-the-job mistake. All pilots run that risk. Piloting is a serious business.

In this article, we will tell you what you must go through to become an airline pilot. We will also explain an airline pilot’s day-to-day life and the many possible courses of his or her career. As we will see, this job is not for everybody, but it is a uniquely thrilling and fascinating profession.

Myths, Stereotypes and Reality

The longtime stereotype of airline pilots is that they are male, fearless, perfectly fit, good at math, trained in the military, blessed with perfect vision, all paid like super senior 747 captains (regardless of what they really fly) and only at work three days every other month.

In the 1950s, some of these notions were accurate. The average professional pilot was a white man with a military background who didn’t wear glasses (at least when he was hired). With a little career luck, he became a senior pilot flying the largest planes and, as such, made the big bucks.

Today, women and minorities are in all positions within the aviation job spectrum, roughly half of professional pilots never flew in the military, and, as long as his or her vision is correctable to 20/20, a pilot can have glasses the thickness of Coke bottle bottoms. Work commitments vary greatly between airlines, but being away from home roughly half of the month is a good average. While not every pilot has the body and health of an aerobics instructor, all must be fit enough to pass a medical exam at regular intervals.

Only a relative few senior 747 captains at major airlines make legendary 747 captain’s pay (upwards of $250,000 a year). At the low end of the pay scale, some pilots for small airlines make little enough to qualify for food stamps. Most salaries are somewhere in between. It all depends on your position, aircraft, airline size and time at that airline.

The success and sustainability of online math tutoring programs depends on the active involvement of many people. Those with an interest in this effort can, for example, serve as tutors or mentors, help with program coordination, or provide content or pedagogic guidance as appropriate to their expertise. There are a lot of free online math tutoring programs in the internet. You can find it.

Math for chess

A simple computation problem such as 2 + 3 becomes interesting when chess is integrating into math problem. Chess images have to be analyzed by children using spatial relation by analyzing tables, symbols, and observe patterns using tables or list to convert symbols into numbers.

What can you do if your local library does not carry the Sunday newspapers for nearby major cities? You can try news stands or bookstores such as a Barnes and Noble or Borders for Sunday newspapers as these stores will often have them in their news stands.

There is also website, www.firehouse.com that has a jobs section.  Firecareers.com is another website with nationwide ads for firefighting jobs.  However, before you go to these web sites, you need to ask yourself whether or not you want to relocate and, if so, how far you would be willing to move.  For example, as of this writing, Firehouse.com had openings posted for a firefighter/paramedic in Toledo, OH, for a firefighter/paramedic in Texas, a firefighter in Kansas, and for a firefighter in Boston.  The good news is that if you are willing to relocate just about anywhere, your chances of landing a job increase dramatically.

Another good source for information about firefighting jobs is to take fire courses at your local community college or to take seminars that are sometimes offered through fire associations.  You’ll find that most of these courses are taught by people still working in a fire department.  They may know of openings and testing opportunities.  Plus, these classes give you the opportunity to network with other people looking for firefighter jobs.  Just as important, these classes and seminars will increase your level of education and add beneficial information to your resume.

Fire magazines called trade publications have classified sections.  One good example of this is Firehouse Magazine which occasionally lists entry-level firefighter positions.  If you subscribe to one or more of these publications, you will not only find advertised positions, you will also learn more about firefighting.

Did you know that fire departments in most cities are usually not the organization that gives firefighter tests? In fact, these tests are usually given by city or county human resource (HR) or personnel offices.  Every city and county has an office that handles the testing for all of the agencies within its jurisdiction, including the fire department.  The way it works is the fire department tells the HR or Personnel office that it has openings for firefighters and that an exam needs to be scheduled the HR or Personnel office will then schedule and administer the testing.

In addition to contacting your local H.R. or personnel department, you should also contact each fire department in your area individually as some of them do not use a city or county personnel department for testing.  Instead, they have a personal services manager who handles testing and recruitment.

Submitting A Firefighter Job Application

This process begins one of two ways.  Either you find openings for firefighters in the newspaper and decide to apply or you begin the process by obtaining an application with the hope that positions will open up in the near future.

In either case, the first big step is to obtain an application.  You can usually get an application and information about the exam and hiring process from your city’s department of personnel or from your local fire department.  You might also be able obtain an application from your school guidance office, your local library or on the Internet.

Firefighter Written Exam

The next step will be to take the written examination.  You can find comprehensive information about this test by clicking on the button labeled Written Examination.  To give you some idea of how complex this test is, you are normally given two hours to complete it and it will probably consist of about 100 multiple-choice questions.  These questions will be designed to test your ability to understand spatial orientation, your powers of observation and memory, your knowledge of tools, your ability to read and understand written directions and so forth.

Firefighter Interview

Assuming you score highly on the written exam, your next step in the hiring process will be an oral interview.  This interview is usually handled by a committee consisting of a fire chief, a representative of the city’s HR or personnel department, and several local business people who are experienced in the interview process.  For more information on the oral interview, click on the button labeled The Interview.

Firefighter Fitness Test

Step three in the hiring process will be a physical fitness test.  This test will include conditioning exercises, and what are known as engine work simulation tests.  These are tests such as hose drag, hose carry upstairs, ladder work and ladder ascent and descent.  All of these simulation tests are usually done without pause and need to be completed within a set amount of time.

Firefighter Psychological Evaluation

Next will be a background investigation followed by a psychological evaluation.  The reason for this psychological evaluation is because of the hard work and danger involved in firefighting.  Firefighters work at great heights, in conditions of extreme confinement and in terrible weather.  Because of this, fire departments want to know that firefighter candidates are mentally capable of handling the stress in these types of situations.

Firefighter Medical Exam

The next-to-last step in the hiring process is usually a medical examination to rule out pre-existing conditions.  This exam is also as a baseline to detect fire service-related physical problems that may be found during the fire department’s annual or periodic medical examinations.  For more information on the generally accepted medical requirements for firefighters, take a look at the National Fire Protection Association Publication 1582, “Standard on Medical Requirements for Firefighters.” The last step in the hiring process will be an interview with the fire chief.

Welcome to How to Become a Firefighter.  If you are seriously driven to become a firefighter, we salute you.  Firefighting is challenging, interesting, rewarding, and one of America’s top jobs.  One recent survey showed firefighting as the most respected career in the United States, even ahead of doctors and college professors.

That’s the good news.  The background checks news is that it is not easy to become a firefighter.  It would be nice if you could just walk down to your local fire station, hand in an application and start the next day, but it just doesn’t work that way.  In fact, firefighting has become such a desirable occupation that the competition for every opening in just about every fire department has become fierce.

This site is organized to help you overcome the competition and land your dream job.

Where to find firefighting jobs. Information that can help you find firefighter job openings.

Preparing to become a firefighter. This page discusses and lists the prerequisites you need to become a firefighter.

Submitting an application. Where to get an application and what you need to know to ensure it will be filed on time.

The firefighter hiring process. This section describes in detail the process you must go through in order to get hired as a firefighter.

Firefighter requirements. This page lists firefighter requirements from three cites as examples of what may be required if you apply to become a firefighter.

Standing out from the crowd. Read this section to learn the things you can do to stand out from the competition and look like the best applicant possible.

Applying for the job. Applying for a firefighter position is not as simple as stopping by your local fire station and asking for an application.  This section will teach what you need to know to get an application and submit it correctly.

Typical firefighter written examination. The written exam you will be required to take and pass will not be an easy one.  This page will give you the information you need to maximize your chances of getting a great score.  This page also has links to sample questions.

The Interview. The next step to winning that dream job is an interview with a hiring committee.  Many candidates fail in this area.  If you follow our advice, you can ace the interview.

Physical test. Step three in the hiring process will be a physical test.  Go to this page to see what you will most likely be asked to do.  Again, be prepared and you cannot help but succeed.

Firefighter salaries. What you will get paid as a firefighter may not be as important to you as the job itself, but we’re sure you’ll want to know what you can expect to earn.  Go to this section to see some typical salaries.

Firefighting equipment. If you are interested in what equipment you will be using and what clothing you will be wearing as a firefighter, this page lists and describes both clothing and equipment.

We wish you well on your quest to become a firefighter.  It is a noble and vital job and one that will test your intelligence, communication skills, physical ability and your talent for problem solving.