Barrie Fire and Emergency Service has a long history of hiring female firefighters but for some reason, women recently are not lining up to apply.
"While we do not track or record applicants gender or cultural backgrounds, at a quick glance it looks like less than 6 percent of our applicants are female," said Acting Fire Chief Cory Mainprize.
"We're not sure why more women and/or minorities did not apply, however we would most certainly welcome them and encourage them to apply for future recruitment opportunities."
One of the highest ranking Barre Firefighters is Deputy Chief Sue Dawson, who recently celebrated 35 years with the department. Dawson started in an administration position and worked her way up to Deputy Chief of Communications and Business Services. She currently oversees dispatch services for 17 different fire departments in Simcoe County.
The first front line female firefighters were hired in 1990 and both still work for the department, although one went to Kitchener for a couple of years and then returned home.
Her colleague has progressed through the ranks and is currently the department's Chief Fire Prevention Officer.
The third full-time front line firefighter was hired in 1998. She is currently recovering from surgery and intends to return to full-time firefighting in early 2018.
And the fourth full-time female firefighter joined the service in 2015.
"We recognize that the strength of an organization rests in its greatest resource—its people. The more talent, skills, perspectives, insight, knowledge, and abilities acquired through diversity, the stronger and more effective and competitive our organization will be," said Mainprize.
Last week, a class of new recruits who graduated consisted of ten men, nine of which had previous experience with other departments including Owen Sound, Brampton, Oakville and Dayton, Ohio.
The all male, all white class prompted one of our BarrieToday readers to question the hiring process.
Minimum standards are the same for every recruitment process but each pool of candidates is different along with the department's objectives at the time, according to Mainprize.
"We may be looking for specific requirements depending on our needs at the time of hiring. In this most recent recruitment we were looking for candidates who demonstrated the values of our organization and would be ambassadors to the Fire Service and our City," he said.
"BFES utilizes the Candidate Testing Services managed by Ontario Fire Administration Inc. to test our candidates. The City of Barrie Human Resources Department, and BFES both have representatives on the CFAI advisory committee, including the diversity and inclusiveness working group."
Candidates who meet the minimum criteria are reviewed by an internal recruitment team who reviews their additional qualifications. Each candidate is evaluated on the basis of individual merit using a standardized scoring matrix. The top ranked candidates advance to an interview. After successfully completing the interview stage candidates attend psychometric screening. Vacancies are filled by the top ranked candidates after the completion of all stages of the recruitment process, the Acting Chief explained.
"The Corporation does not consider ethnicity, age, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, or religion when recruiting candidates. We are committed to selecting the best candidates available from each recruitment process and are an equal opportunity employer."
The public face of the fire department is Samantha Hoffmann, a veteran firefighter who is the public information officer and produces the service's award-winning educational and fire prevention campaigns.
Hoffmann is part of the Support Division, where six of the eight fire prevention officers are women.
