A Special Message for Department Heads
We encourage all department heads to inform all personnel as well as city senior staff and other department employees when you join the "Council".
F.I.R.E. all senior staff, employees and members of other departments.
Faciliate - Inspire - Recruitment - Employees
America's population has become increasingly diverse and continues to do so. So to have the communities that we are sworn to serve without regard to race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. In fact, the combination of ethnic groups and women alone yields an overwhelmingly diverse population.
Critical Questions:
- Does your fire department mirror the increasingly diverse community that you serve?
- Does your department have a diversity mandate or initiative?
- Do you have a comprehensive & long-term diversity recruitment plan?
- Does the recruitment of qualified candidates from diverse backgrounds seem like finding a needle in a haystack?
Even fire departments that are fully committed to realizing diversity face severe roadblocks.
Diversity is Challenging
On the road to diversity, most fire departments face the following difficulties:
- Resource limitations due to the inescapable and perpetual budget crunch.
- Highly talented and motivated recruitment personnel that, unfortunately, are short on community outreach and target marketing experience.
- Few available candidates due to the difficulty of extending diversity recruitment efforts beyond your traditional geographic boundaries.
- An ongoing focus upon your next application event gets in the way of developing a longer-term, sustainable plan that keeps your diversity recruitment pipeline filled with quality candidates.
If you can relate to some or all of these issues, you are not alone in being diversity challenged. Nor are you alone in having viable solutions readily available.
Enhance Your Diversity Efforts, Immediately
Joining the Firefighter Diversity Recruitment Council is something that your department can do, right now, to effectively address the challenges outlined above.
Formed by Firefighter's ABC's, the Council is a collaborative forum of fire organizations and their HR recruitment teams. With a nation-wide membership of both large and small organizations, the Council's mission is to achieve levels of diversity that more closely reflect the racial and gender make-up of served communities. And, to do so in a cost effective manner by:
- Sharing "Best Practices" in the recruitment of diverse candidates.
- Programs that more effectively target quality candidates.
- Preparation tools that increase application & testing success rates.
- Extending and deepening your diversity pipeline through personalized recruitment announcements to candidates subscribing to the National Recruit Database.
For a $125 onetime fee, Your Membership Benefits Include:
- "How-To" Diversity recruitment tips.
- Articles by fellow Council members & Diversity Experts.
- Free postings through the National Recruit Data Base to broadcast your recruitment events to a nation-wide pool of candidates.
- Forum/chat room to directly collaborate with fellow departments.
- Entry level and lateral job postings to member departments.
- Discounted fees for the Council's national conferences.
D.R.I.V.E. Program
I encourage all Council members to take full advantage of the D.R.I.V.E. Program.
Diversity
Recruitment
Injects
Valued
Employees
In an effort to assist the Firefighter Diversity Recruitment Council members in their “Diversity” outreach programs we offer at no additional cost the D.R.I.V.E. Program.
The D.R.I.V.E. Program provides a means for your department to seed your candidate pool with a diverse population of candidates through partnerships with members of your communities. We encourage you to partner with organizations such as, high schools, colleges, churches, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, fire related organizations, personnel within your department and others to distribute your “Free” National Recruit Database Subscriptions.
The number of paid personnel in your fire department determines the number of “Free” National Recruit Database Subscriptions your department will receive during each year of Council membership. Please download the sample D.R.I.V.E. Program PDF and make changes as needed based on your department.
We suggest you provide this form to your D.R.I.V.E. Program community partners.
After logging on as a Council member you can access your “Free” subscription allotments.
The number of paid personnel in your department determines the number of “Free” Two Year National Recruit Database subscriptions your department will receive.
Paid Personnel Free Subscriptions Value > 999 1,000 $15,000 700 – 999 700 $10,485 500 – 699 500 $7,500 200 – 449 300 $6,735 < 200 100 $3,000
Departments displaying their Council membership banner on their web site may request additional subscriptions to the NRD. Please contact Firefighter’s ABC’s at FirefightersABCs@FirefightersABCs.com to request additional subscriptions. The criteria to receive additional subscriptions will be granted on a case by case basis.
Join the Council to accelerate your diversity initiative and to begin filling your recruitment pipeline with quality candidates.
Firefighter Diversity Recruitment Council Regions 1 - North Central Region: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin Contact: JeffreyThomas@FirefightersABCs.com 2 - North East Region: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont Contact: JeffreyThomas@FirefightersABCs.com 3 - North West Region: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming Contact: JeffreyThomas@FirefightersABCs.com 4 - South Central Region: Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia Contact: NickThomas@FirefightersABCs.com 5 - South East Region: Alabama, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia Contact: NickThomas@FirefightersABCs.com 6 - South West Region: Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah Contact: NickThomas@FirefightersABCs.com 7 - Metro Fire Departments Contact: MichaelESmith@FirefightersABCs.com 8 - Canadian Regions:
Each Province shall be considered one region Alberta
Manitoba
New Brunswick
Newfoundland & Labrador
Nova Scotia
Nunavut
Ontario
Prince Edward Island
Quebec
Saskatchewan
Yukon
9 - International Regions:
All international regions except Canada shall be considered one region
Contact: MichaelESmith@FirefightersABCs.com
