The Recruiting Disparity in EMS

[UMSTUDENT]

So, I'm on the last leg of my journey to becoming a paramedic. One more year and I'll technically have graduated, taken my paramedic registry and be able to practice in a number of places and environments. As some of you may know, my education has been relatively unique and I spend the majority of my days with the same 10 or so students who were accepted into my program.

My problem is that EMS organizations are horrible about recruiting. At my university we have TONS of local businesses and corporations vying for new graduates to employ. NSA, ExxonMobil, Legg Mason, Goldman Sachs, State, Federal government. They ALL send tons of recruiters. It seems that every industry besides the emergency services actively recruits for qualified, highly motivated applicants. It sucks.

The people who do come to recruit often leave much to be desired. Most of the combo EMS/fire services seem to only be set-up to attract people who want an easy way to a pension and relative job security. Never do they talk about a "career" or a route for advancement. The private and county EMS services are interesting, some of them actually have very progressive systems, but they too lack in the realm of making you motivated to work for them. They talk of working in hospitals "under" nurses in your "down time." Horrible benefits, no pensions, crappy hours. They offer no incentive for individuals with an education and sometimes look down upon it.

This had led me to desperately search for other job skills. Graduate school, which has always been a very high consideration, is looking more and more lucrative. The problem is that many of the schools I'm interested in want 2-5 years of work experience that is "career oriented."

My question is this:

Why doesn't our field do a better job of recruiting? Is the field saturated with people willing to work on the whootie-woo for nothing? What would you do?

Thanks

[flight-lp]

Problems I see...............

A) People are willing to do this job for free, so why would they want to pay you.............

Many services are not satisfied with the current state of EMS education (god I don't blame them!)

C) Many private services have no interest in who they get to staff their trucks, as long as they get paid. Private, for profit systems are businesses first and foremost.

D) Pension??? What the hell is that????

[Ridryder 911]

Why have recruiters when you have a stack of applications on the desk ? In another 90 days you will have another again.

I agree it sucks.. yet again the so called profession is not yet made it to a professional level. I have been a recruiter for my service at one time and attempted to promote such from services, but it did not catch on, again because it employers did not have too.

You see recruiters in nursing depending on how short the supply and demand is. Lately, the past few years instructors informed me they have not been active. When I first went to nursing school, I only bought my lunch once... it was always brought in or purchased to the class by recruiters, definitely, not that way in EMS.

[JakeEMTP]

When I wrote the Intermediate exam, there were recruiters outside of the testing site.

I have to agree, they did tend to paint a rather bleak picture. Perhaps they were being honest. I mean, lousy pay, hours, benefits etc., seems to be the norm. One in particular was looking for intermediates that were progressing on with their education to the paramedic level. I found that quite refreshing.

For the most part however, their pitch ( for lack of a better term ), left something to be desired. I believe Ridryder to be correct in the fact that, if Human resources is swamped with applications, why should the recruit? 'Tis a pity. Plus there is the whole volly thing holding down wages, but that's for the other thread.