Interview Day Checklist
EVERYTHING TO HANDLE BEFORE YOU WALK IN
On interview day, arrive 20 to 30 minutes early with your suit pressed, shoes shined, and resume printed. Get a clean shave. Treat everyone like they are scoring you from the parking lot onward. In the room, shake hands, make eye contact, sit up straight, and listen to the whole question before you answer. Walk in with nothing on your mind but the questions.
You have prepared your answers. This checklist covers everything else. The parts candidates quietly lose points on without ever knowing it. Work through it in order. The goal is simple: walk into that room with nothing on your mind but the questions.
Download PDFThe week before
- Do a practice drive to the interview location, at the same time of day as your interview, so traffic and parking hold no surprises.
- Get your suit sorted now, not the night before. Buy, borrow, or thrift a business professional suit. If money is tight, a borrowed suit that fits beats showing up underdressed.
- Research the department cold: its size, number of stations, the shifts they run, the apparatus they staff, and whether they run EMS.
- Have one genuine, specific reason you want this department, not a generic one.
- Run full mock interviews out loud until your answers feel natural, not memorized.
The night before
- Lay everything out: suit pressed, shirt ironed, shoes shined, belt on, resume printed. Decide it all tonight so the morning runs on autopilot.
- Set two alarms.
- Plan your timing so that even a flat tire would not make you late.
- Get real sleep. Do not cram new answers at midnight. Trust your preparation and go to bed at a decent hour.
The morning of
- Wake up early, with margin. Give yourself enough time that nothing feels rushed.
- Eat a real meal, not just coffee. Something steady that will not spike and crash, because you may be waiting before your slot.
- Shower and groom: clean haircut, trimmed and clean fingernails.
- Shave clean. Show up cleanly shaven.
- Go easy on the cologne. Do not be the candidate remembered for smelling like cologne or the gym. It distracts the panel and it sticks in their memory for the wrong reason.
- Dress fully: suit and tie, clean dress shoes.
- Bring your resume copies, any required ID or documents, and a couple of genuine questions to ask the panel about the department.
Arriving and waiting
- Arrive 20 to 30 minutes early. Early is on time.
- Treat everyone like they are scoring you, from the parking lot to the front desk. Word travels, and candidates have been cut from the process for how they treated support staff or a citizen.
- Turn your phone all the way off before you walk in.
- Sit, breathe, and settle. Nerves are normal and expected. The panel wants you to do well.
In the room
- Firm handshake, eye contact, good posture. Your first impression lands in seconds.
- Listen to the whole question before you answer. If you are unsure what they are asking, ask them to clarify.
- Answer with real, specific stories, not generic lines. Back every trait you claim with an example from your own life, and tie it to the job.
- Do not limit your stories to fire and EMS. Team sports, customer service, and the trades all count when they fit the question.
- Know the chain of command and do not freelance around it on scenario questions.
- Close strong. Thank the panel, say why you want this department specifically, and why you are the right hire. Never waste the closing question.
After you walk out
- Stay professional until you are off the property. You are still being watched.
- Write down what got asked and what you would sharpen, while it is fresh, for the next one.
On being cleanly shaven.
Show up with a clean shave. This is not only about looking sharp. Firefighters have to get a proper seal on an SCBA mask, and most departments require members to be clean-shaven for that reason. Turning up cleanly shaven signals that you already understand the job and take it seriously. If you wear facial hair, interview day is the day to shave it.
Prepared everything but the answers?
This checklist gets you to the chair. Your answers are what get you the badge. The only way to sharpen them is to practice out loud and hear how you actually sound under pressure.
Practice free at Station VisitRelated guides
For interview preparation only. Not affiliated with or endorsed by any fire department or hiring agency.
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HOW WOULD YOUR CLOSING ANSWER SCORE?
Reading about this helps. Finding out whether your own answer actually lands is the part that changes your score. Type a real answer below and the same grader used in the full mock board will score it. No account needed.
Want to see a full interview scored first? View a sample scorecard.
The question
Is there anything else you would like the panel to know?
Your answer
One free grade. No account required.
NOT SURE WHERE TO START?
- What to Do on a Firefighter Station VisitHow to set one up, what to ask, and why it's a real interview that doesn't feel like one.
- Firefighter Interview Prep: What Actually WorksFive real stories, said out loud, beats a question list. Includes the free grader.
PREPARING FOR A SPECIFIC DEPARTMENT?
Panel format, scoring criteria, and passing scores vary by department. These guides cover what each one actually does, or browse all departments by state:
- Los Angeles Fire Department oral interviewEight scored criteria, behavior-based, 70 to stay on the list.
- Houston Fire Department oral interviewCivil service process with a recruiter interview stage.
- Phoenix Fire Department oral interviewValues-heavy panel with a strong community service emphasis.
- LAFD vs LA County Fire oral interviewSame city, opposite hiring logic: interview score vs written test score.
- Orange County Fire Authority oral interviewTwo interviews: a scored panel, then a Chief's interview for fit.
- Long Beach Fire Department oral interviewCaptain's interview with a community member, then a Chief's interview.
- City of Sacramento Fire Department oral interviewChief's interview weighted 60 percent against the oral board's 40.
- San Diego Fire-Rescue oral interviewRuns its own Civil Service Exam, not FCTC. Applications open every 1 to 2 years.
- San Francisco Fire Department oral interviewTwo interviews, and the oral board explicitly scores your knowledge of the city.
- San Jose Fire Department oral interview5 to 8 panel questions, not necessarily fire-related, then a Chief's interview.
- Austin Fire Department oral interviewNo live panel. Your answers are video recorded and rated by assessors later.
- San Antonio Fire Department oral interviewA 230-question written exam gates everything before the interview.
- Dallas Fire-Rescue oral interviewDoes not publish its interview structure. Hard eligibility gates before you apply.
- FDNY oral interviewList-number driven. Your written exam score ranks you, not the interview.
- Chicago Fire Department oral interviewA lottery decides your list position, not your score or an interview.
Testing somewhere else? Add that department's exact questions to a custom practice board and get scored on them before the panel asks.
About the author
LUKE — FIREFIGHTER-PARAMEDIC
Luke is a working firefighter-paramedic with several years on the job, including time on the other side of the hiring table. He has sat on multiple oral boards and run mock interviews with candidates who went on to get hired, and watched strong candidates lose spots to people who simply interviewed better. The scoring rubric behind Station Visit was built with input from captains and battalion chiefs with 20 to 30-plus years in the fire service. He built Station Visit after running out of ways to tell friends the same thing: your answers are too generic, and you will not find that out until the panel has already scored you.
Last name and department withheld. Station Visit is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or speaking for any fire department, and keeping the department out of it keeps it that way. More about Station Visit