Fire Service Promotions

Accurate Promotional Procedures

The success of your promotional process demands more than just a good written test. The proper approach begins with up to date rules and procedures that are fair and legally defensible. Acceptance by your firefighters is ensured by realistic ratings systems and objective interview procedures that are technically accurate and establish your credibility.

The Fire Division team is equipped to deal with your department's specific needs to assure that your promotional system is properly balanced. Each component in the process should complement the total promotional procedure. Specific issues such as passing points and weights assigned to the various components can present problems if not properly engineered. Analysis of your department's promotional program is part of our regular service.

Fire Division clients have come to expect this level of service as a consulting standard.

Written Examinations

Each module is based upon a separate recognized and recent text which is quickly available from book publishers. All of the IFTSA series are included as well as other major sources.

Our examinations are pre-tested in the field. Written tests are regularly updated to ensure fairness and acceptance by your candidates. Our general job-knowledge tests are designed for the widest possible application to fire departments nationwide. Most examinations contain between 100 and 200 items that require from 2 to 3 hours to administer.

Using Our Services

Interested departments or commissions should contact us at least 90 days prior to the testing date to allow for rules and procedures changes. Your job descriptions and organizational charts will be requested to assure that the proper procedure is selected for your department. Consultation with command level fire personnel allows a study list to be generated based upon the modules related to your department practices.

Most departments prefer to have the written examination administered by one of the PCI agents from your area. This is done in order to maintain the highest level of test security.

Our test questions will not be found in book stores or popular test study guides. To avoid compromising security, the examinations are not normally pre-reviewed by user departments. References and study lists assure that you are receiving a proper test that applies to your organization. On-site pre-inspections of the examination can be arranged for special circumstances.

If it is normal practice for candidates to review their results, the breakdown of the total examination into subject area scores for each candidate will be especially useful.

Fire Division promotional examinations are scored and evaluated by our in-house computer and optical scanning system for accuracy and speed. Normally, you will have test results in 72 hours. You will also receive specific report for each candidate's performance and a statistical report on the overall performance of the total group.

Custom Services

Expert Panel Review: A Fire Division consultant supervises an on-site panel comprised of your own staff ranking officers. Guided by recognized scientific procedures, each test item is evaluated against local practices. Specific questions are removed from the test that are judged inappropriate. This is normally performed at the time the candidates are being tested to assure security. The Expert Panel Review results in the defensible elimination of improper questions from the test prior to scoring.

After-Test Item Analysis: This objective statistical procedure requires a minimum of 30 candidates. It is a statistical process which is performed after the test is administered, but before scoring. Item analysis can be used in conjunction with an Expert Panel Review or by itself. Recognized mathematical formulas eliminate improper questions and calculate the index of reliability of the test for your organization. These statistics are useful for review procedures and as a defense to challenges of unfairness.