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Hi Caduceus, nice to meet you I'm going to be the one irresponsible adult in this bunch who walks over, shakes your hand, and hands you the code to access my ambulance shed door..... Then we are going to sit down together and have an in depth visit. In some of your previous posts you've alluded to having witnessed or possibly having been a part of some traumatic events, or maybe some medical events. I'm going to ask you further about them, what they were, what your part of them consisted of, how it affected you in the following days, weeks, etc. During our chat, I'm also going to give it to you straight. We see things in EMS that most people can't even begin to imagine. Things that we carry with us for the rest of our lives. I only have three decades in this business and I'm sure I haven't seen it all and there are probably more things I have yet to see, but honestly, I still have a few accident scenes and traumatically abused young patients come and visit me in my dreams.........but I also have some wonderful memories of being the first person to hold a newborn baby in my hands and can still feel the arms of a mother who's son we revived after he plunged into an ice cold lake hugging me and thanking me for not giving up on him. So we are going to talk about those things together. We are going to talk about the good, the bad, and the boring. We are going to talk about how a profession in EMS can either make or break a person. Then I'm going to ask you to go home and take 24 hours to really think about whether or not you want to come along with me in my ambulance. 24 hrs later...............you show up at my bay and say "I thought about it and I still want to do it." And then I'm going to give you a pager which you will carry with you at all times. He probably will be quiet for the first few days that you carry him and you'll probably push down on the little protruding button on the on/off knob a couple of times a day "just to be sure" it hasn't gone off and you've missed it...... And then finally, when we least expect it, (most likely at 0600 hours) Mr. Pager is going to scream/beep/tone at the top of his lungs to tell you that "Old Mr. Creeky Hips down the road has fallen and can't get up." and your going to jump out of your nice warm bed, throw on that set of clothing that you have had nicely laid out for just this occasion for three days now, wipe the sleep out of your eyes and try to calm your shaking hands while waiting for me to swing by and pick you up for the ride to the ambulance bay. I'm going to pick you up outside your house and on the way to the ambulance bay I'm going to coach you to slow down your breathing and shake out the tremors running thru your body and just relax. I'm going to calmly remind you that this is Mr. Creeky Hips emergency and not ours. And we're going to talk about what we might be heading into as we get to the bay and transfer into the ambulance with the rest of the crew. I'm also going to remind you that this is the time of day that heart attacks happen and that we can't always rely on what "Mr. Pager" tells us so we need to be mentally prepared for the "worst case" scenario as well as a simple fall. As we pull up to the front door of Mr. Creeky Hip's house I'm going to ask you again if you are ready and if you want to come in. If you don't, that's fine with me and I really won't mind if you decide to sit this one out in the front seat of the rig and just wait for my partner and I. I will not hold it against you either, so don't be afraid to tell me that you've changed your mind. I'd rather know now than have you come in against your better self judgement. But if you do decide to go in, then you need to know that I can't hold your hand. I can keep an eye on you and guide you if needed, but once we step foot into Mr. Creeky Hip's house, my focus and my attention need to be on him and what is happening with him. If we get in the house and it is a simple fall, great! We can do a rapid trauma assessment while we question Mr. Creeky Hip and try to find out what caused him to fall and get him all packaged up and ready to transport (if needed) or if he doesn't want to go in, do a thorough assessment both medical and trauma, call medical control then help him up off the floor and be on our merry way. Most likely the entire time I am going to be observing you and how you handle yourself, how you interact with Mr. Creeky Hips and his family, and how you interact with myself and my crew and hopefully you will be wonderful at it. But if we walk in the door and Mr. Creeky Hip is exhibiting agonal respirations and his family is hysterically screaming at us to "do something" then I may even forget for a few minutes that we brought you along because we will be in full "code" mode and you may have to fend for yourself for a few minutes until we get CPR started, the AED on, get IV's going, etc....so I hope you are okay with that and secretly I am probably hoping that you jump right in and ask if you can help with CPR. Whether I need you to help or not doesn't matter, but your offer to help will be immeasurable in the amount of faith I put into helping you continue along your chosen path should you choose it after this call. And when it is all said and done, and the call is over, we are going to talk about it. And we are going to talk about you. And should you decide you want to continue on this path I will urge you to first get your Emergency Medical Responder patch.... And I will probably give you my personal cell phone number and tell you that any time you want to talk about it to call me. Any time. I will be honest with you and tell you that I would much rather you get your EMR patch before your EMT patch because of your age. I'm not trying to downgrade you or say that you aren't ready for an EMT patch but rather just saying that "at your age" the logical step is to get an EMR patch which will allow you to ride on the rig but the ultimate responsibility for a patient's life will never lay in your hands. That's a huge responsibility to have at 15. As a side note, my son, who is 12, has his EMR patch and it might be a shock to some, but he is allowed to ride on the ambulance with me on certain calls. Granted he has grown up in EMS and has practically lived in an EMS classroom since he was about five years old, not to mention been witness to several car accidents that we have come upon while traveling and watched from afar as I've treated the patients. The last class that I taught he decided he wanted to take the State final and practicals..........and he passed......he passed all the skill stations and the written so "legally" he can practice as an EMR but legally and mentally are not always the same. I am fortunate that I work full time for a small service and I can pick and choose which calls I allow him to go on, but I always know in the back of my mind that at some point we could be called to something I know he shouldn't be involved in because it will be totally different on scene than what the call came out as. Thankfully my town is small enough that if he isn't able to stay in the rig, there will most likely be two or three extra people on scene that can take him home again and I can talk to him later about the call and why he wasn't allowed on scene. But in your case, it will be a totally different deal and I worry a little bit that you may get in over your head by mistake.....especially if you are running with a bunch of guys who maybe won't think twice about how something may or may not affect you....but on the other hand, I applaud you on the research that you have been doing and how you found this site. Your maturity level speaks to me of far older than 15 and I may be worrying for naught... Please keep us posted and let us know how you are doing....and never be afraid to talk to us about stuff..........good luck!!

I've had an EMT license for about 20 months and have only been able to get 2 job interviews after applying to over a dozen ambulance companies. I'm currently working on getting my paramedic license, but something tells me it'd be tough to be hired as a paramedic with no EMT experience. Is there anything else I could do to make me more hirable?

The offer is open to anyone. I've helped a fair share from the city as well to tweak their resume. But you are right, it doesn't hurt to have another eye look at your resume

2 interviews after applying to a dozen ambulance companies - Would be interested in seeing your resume. Could it use some tweaking, is the resume in a format that is acceptable to most HR departments or is your Resume making a quick diversion to the proverbial circular file. Do not take offense at this but is your resume professionally written or is it in the jargon of a high schooler? Again don't take offense but HR departments look at resume's every single day and they quickly throw away resumes that are poorly written or look like "sh(*(&&T" if you forgive my french. Are you under or over the age of 21? That might affect your eligibility for insurance as well for their insurance carrier. If you are willing, send me your resume, ruffems@gmail.com and I'll take a look at it. There is a reason why you have only gotten 2 interviews after applying to 12 or more companies. One other thing, just a question to ponder, do you have anything in your past that could have a direct bearing on why you are not getting calls for interviews. Take this case for example A very good friend of mine applied to the KC MO police department, he got through the first several steps in the process. He was told by a Captain that he was a shoe in for the academy and then came the polygraph. He told the truth on the polygraph that he had taken money from a previous employer. He got the denial letter in the mail 10 days later. He attempted to get on with about 10 other police departments but on the applications they ask have you applied at other departments and he wrote down which ones. Apparantly, those departments talk amongst each other and he was told by a honest police department HR person that there was something in his KC MO PD hiring process that will keep him from getting on at any police department in a 100 mile radius. He said that he knew what that "something" was. So I would look inward (again don't take this the wrong way) and see if there is something that you can do to improve your chances at getting even an interview other than the tried and true response of "Volunteer work" because you may not have that option in your area. And again, don't take this as a personal insult but how did you apply to those companies? did you take the application in person or via the internet? If you took it in, in person, how were you dressed? Were you dressed shabbily and looking like a beatnik(again not personal), or did you go there with at least a shirt and tie on with nice slacks?, was your hair combed and did you not smell? If you sent it in via the internet, are you sure that you attached all documentation correctly, they may not have gotten all your paperwork. NOW, for your future job hunt. 1. When you drop off a resume/application/data packet - do it in at least a shirt and tie and slacks and dress shoes. Dress to look the part. 2. Call each of those agencies that you did not get an interview with but you filled an application out at, and ask to talk to the hiring person, HR or whoever. Tell them who you are and talk to them about any future positions or current positions. Let them know you filled an application out and you were wondering the status. (if you've done this, they may have already told you why you weren't hireable). 3. Keep good records of calls and who you talk to, never hurts to name drop when you are talking to someone who can make or break your future. If you talk to Jim Jones at the HR department and you have also talked to Janet Jones at the same HR department make sure you tell them that, they will then be able to talk to one another about you. 4. When you send your resume/application in to the next agency, follow up with a phone call to HR in 5-7 days just to make sure that your packet made it to them. Just because you send the package to them or dropped it off to them, DOES NOT mean that they got it. And last but not least, for the ambulance service that you REALLY REALLY want to work with, why not call their HR department and see if you can come in and sit down and talk to the HR person about the jobs open and what you can do to stand out. That's a first step of standing out and showing that you have the initiative in wanting the job. If you just say "oh hell, I'll just send this package in and wait,and wait and wait, and when I don't get a call, I'll just wonder what happened to it" You don't want to be that guy do you???? Of course not. Take care and send me your resume - Ruff