As a firefighter, your CV must ignite the interest of potential employers by showcasing your bravery, skills, and dedication to saving lives.
Our friendly guide is designed to fan the flames of your job application, ensuring you stand out in a sea of candidates.
Take a look at our Firefighter CV example below, complete with top tips to create a blazing application.
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Firefighter CV example
This CV example showcases the optimal structure and format for your Firefighter CV, providing a pleasant reading experience for busy recruiters.
It also demonstrates the skills, experience and qualifications you should emphasize in your own CV to increase your chances of landing job interviews.
Firefighter CV format and structure
If you focus purely on the written content of your CV but ignore the style and layout, your efforts could end up wasted.
No matter how suitable you are for the role, no recruiter wants to spend time squinting and trying to navigate a badly designed and disorganised CV.
Instead, make sure to organise your content into a simple structure and spend some time formatting it for ease of reading – it will ensure every recruiter and hiring manager can read your CV with ease.
Tips for formatting your Firefighter CV
- Length: If you want to hold the reader’s attention and ensure your CV isn’t yawn-worthy, it’s best to stick to two sides of A4 or less. This is more than enough room to highlight why you’re a good match for the role – anything more can quickly become tedious!
- Readability: Make sure your CV is easy to read and looks professional by applying some simple formatting tricks. Bullet points are great for making large paragraphs more digestible, while formatting your headings with bold or coloured text will help the reader to find the information they need, with speed.
- Design & format: The saying ‘less is more’ couldn’t be more applicable to CVs. Readability is key, so avoid overly complicated designs and graphics. A subtle colour palette and easy-to-read font is all you need!
- Photos: You can add a profile photo to your CV, if you want to add some personality to it, but they are not a requirement the UK, so you don’t have to.
Quick tip: Creating a professional CV style can be difficult and time-consuming when using Microsoft Word or Google Docs. To create a winning CV quickly, try our quick-and-easy CV Builder and use one of our eye-catching professional CV templates.
CV structure
When writing your own CV, break up your CV content into the following key sections:
- Name and contact details – Place them at the top of your CV, so that employers can easily get in touch.
- CV profile – A punchy sales pitch of your key experience, skills and achievements to reel readers in.
- Core skills section – A bullet-pointed snapshot of your abilities.
- Work experience – A well-structured list of your relevant work experience.
- Education – An overview of any relevant qualifications or professional training you have.
- Hobbies and interests – A short description of any relevant hobbies or interests (optional).
Now you understand the basic layout of a CV, here’s what you should include in each section of yours.
Contact Details
Begin by sharing your contact details, so it’s easy for employers to give you a call.
Keep to the basics, such as:
- Mobile number
- Email address – It should sound professional, with no slang or nicknames. Make a new one for your job applications if necessary.
- Location – Simply share your vague location, for example ‘Manchester’, rather than a full address.
- LinkedIn profile or portfolio URL – Remember to update them before you send your application.
Firefighter CV Profile
Grab the reader’s attention by kick-starting your CV with a powerful profile (or personal statement, if you’re a junior applicant).
This is a short introduction paragraph which summarises your skills, knowledge and experience.
It should paint you as the perfect match for the job description and entice recruiters to read through the rest of your CV.
How to write a good CV profile:
- Make it short and sharp: The best CV profiles are short, sharp and highly relevant to the target role. For this reason, it’s best to write 3-4 lines of high-level information, as anything over might be missed.
- Tailor it: Before writing your CV, make sure to do some research. Figure out exactly what your desired employers are looking for and make sure that you are making those requirements prominent in your CV profile, and throughout.
- Don’t add an objective: Leave your career objectives or goals out of your profile. You only have limited space to work with, so they’re best suited to your cover letter.
- Avoid generic phrases: Cheesy clichès and generic phrases won’t impress recruiters, who read the same statements several times per day. Impress them with your skill-set, experience and accomplishments instead!
Example CV profile for Firefighter
What to include in your Firefighter CV profile?
- Experience overview: Showcase your aptitude for the job you are aiming for by giving a brief summary of your past work history, including the industries you have worked in, the kinds of employers you have served, and the roles you have held.
- Targeted skills: Make your most relevant Firefighter key skills clear in your profile. These should be tailored to the specific role you’re applying for – so make sure to check the job description first, and aim to match their requirements as closely as you can.
- Important qualifications: If the job postings require specific qualifications, it is essential to incorporate them in your profile to ensure visibility to hiring managers.
Quick tip: If you are finding it difficult to write an attention-grabbing CV profile, choose from hundreds of pre-written profiles across all industries, and add one to your CV with one click in our quick-and-easy CV Builder. All profiles are written by recruitment experts and easily tailored to suit your unique skillset.
Core skills section
Add a core skills section below your profile to draw attention to your most applicable skills and make them stand out to readers.
This should consist of 2-3 columns of bullet points that emphasise your relevant skills.
Before creating this section, review the job description and compile a list of any specific skills, specializations, or knowledge needed. Incorporate these findings into your list to portray yourself as the ideal candidate for the position.
Important skills for your Firefighter CV
Fire Suppression Techniques – Executing efficient and effective methods to extinguish fires, including understanding the behaviour of different types of fires and the appropriate extinguishing agents to use.
Emergency Medical Procedures – Providing immediate medical care, including CPR, trauma support, and administering emergency medications as a first responder.
Rescue Operations – Conducting search and rescue missions to locate and safely extract individuals from hazardous environments such as burning buildings or collapsed structures.
Hazardous Materials Handling – Identifying, containing, and disposing of hazardous materials to prevent contamination and ensure public safety.
Fire Prevention and Education – Engaging with the community to disseminate fire safety information and conducting fire risk assessments in homes and businesses.
Firefighting Equipment Operation – Operating complex firefighting machinery such as pumps, aerial ladders, and hydraulic rescue tools with precision and safety.
Incident Command System (ICS) – Managing and coordinating multiple agencies and resources during emergency incidents by applying ICS principles.
Fire Code Compliance – Inspecting buildings and facilities to ensure adherence to fire codes and regulations, identifying potential fire hazards.
Technical Rope Rescue – Employing advanced rope systems for rescue operations in difficult-to-access areas, such as high-angle and confined spaces.
Water Rescue Fundamentals – Performing water-based rescue operations, including swimming, boat handling, and ice rescue techniques.
Quick tip: Our quick-and-easy CV Builder has thousands of in-demand skills for all industries and professions, that can be added to your CV in seconds – This will save you time and ensure you get noticed by recruiters.
Work experience
Recruiters will be itching to know more about your relevant experience by now.
Kick-start this section with your most recent (or current) position, and work your way backwards through your history.
You can include voluntary and freelance work, too – as long as you’re honest about the nature of the work.
Structuring each job
If you don’t pay attention to the structure of your career history section, it could quickly become bulky and overwhelming.
Get in recruiters’ good books by creating a pleasant reading experience, using the 3-step structure below:
Outline
Start with a brief summary of your role as a whole, as well as the type of company you worked for.
Key responsibilities
Next up, you should write a short list of your day-to-day duties within the job.
Recruiters are most interested in your sector-specific skills and knowledge, so highlight these wherever possible.
Key achievements
Finish off by showcasing 1-3 key achievements made within the role.
This could be anything that had a positive effect on your company, clients or customers, such as saving time or money, receiving exemplary feedback or receiving an award.
Sample job description for Firefighter CV
Outline
Work as part of a team of firefighters at Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service, providing emergency response to a regional area of 496 square miles and providing mentorship to junior team members.
Key Responsibilities
- Collaborate with incident commanders to develop and implement response plans, utilising the UK Fire and Rescue Academy’s ICS training.
- Oversee equipment maintenance, upgrading firefighting gear to improve response times and operational efficiency.
- Coordinate with regional fire authorities to stay updated on new regulations and implement necessary changes in procedures.
- Participate in routine drills and simulated scenarios, evaluating team performance and refining emergency response tactics.
Quick tip: Create impressive job descriptions easily in our quick-and-easy CV Builder by adding pre-written job phrases for every industry and career stage.
Education section
Although there should be mentions of your highest and most relevant qualifications earlier on in your CV, save your exhaustive list of qualifications for the bottom.
If you’re an experienced candidate, simply include the qualifications that are highly relevant to Firefighter roles.
However, less experienced candidates can provide a more thorough list of qualifications, including A-Levels and GCSEs.
You can also dedicate more space to your degree, discussing relevant exams, assignments and modules in more detail, if your target employers consider them to be important.
Hobbies and interests
Although this is an optional section, it can be useful if your hobbies and interests will add further depth to your CV.
Interests which are related to the sector you are applying to, or which show transferable skills like leadership or teamwork, can worth listing.
On the other hand, generic hobbies like “going out with friends” won’t add any value to your application, so are best left off your CV.
A strong, compelling CV is essential to get noticed and land interviews with the best employers.
To ensure your CV stands out from the competition, make sure to tailor it to your target role and pack it with sector-specific skills and results.
Remember to triple-check for spelling and grammar errors before hitting send.
Good luck with the job search!