You are applying to a service that is short of people and will train you itself, so the resume you send has a smaller job than you think. This beginner volunteer firefighter resume template has no work experience block. In its place are About Me, Training Background, Field Practice and Certifications, and each one asks for something you can answer honestly on a first application, even if all you have done so far is sit through a community safety workshop.
Start With About Me
About Me is the paragraph at the top of the left column, under your name and the role line, and it is the part a chief reads properly before scanning everything below it.
Say that you want to volunteer, what training you have already done, and that you can turn out when the pager goes, and leave it there. Availability is the one applicants leave out and the one departments are short of. Call volume across the country has more than tripled in forty years, and the number of volunteers hit a low in 2023, so a line naming the nights and weekends you can cover does more for you than another adjective.
Change the role line under your name to match the posting. If the department advertises for a probationary firefighter or a fire cadet, use their words there instead of Volunteer Firefighter.
Put Dates on Your Training
Training Background is the block below About Me, with the years down the left of each entry and the course and the institution beside them. There is room for a program name and a school, and no room for a description, so the entry has to be legible on its own.
Name the course the way the provider names it. Fire Science Basics, Colorado Public Safety College tells a chief where to check; fire training tells him nothing and invites a question you would rather answer in person. If a course ran across two calendar years, use the range the template already shows, and if it took a weekend, put the single year.
Anything taught by somebody qualified belongs here, including a first aid course through work, a Community Emergency Response Team program, or a hazard awareness module from a college. Add rows for as many as you have, or take rows out if you have fewer.
Field Practice Wants Detail
Field Practice comes next in the left column. On an application with no job history it is the most important block on the template, because each entry has a year, a title in bold and two lines of description underneath, and nowhere else are you given room to explain anything.
The template arrives with example entries already in place, and those are placeholders to write over:
- Emergency Drill Participation
- Rescue Equipment Training
- Community Safety Practice
Each of those names an activity. Say what you actually did, where, and what came of it, and the entry starts telling a chief something about you:
- Emergency Drill Participation becomes Ran through evacuation drills at a live-burn training weekend with 20 other recruits, working the hose line and the search team.
- Community Safety Practice becomes Fitted and tested smoke alarms in 40 homes across two weekends with the county fire prevention team.
Pro Tip: Anything with a date, a place and a number belongs here. Ride-alongs, explorer post attendance, a stint marshalling at a county show, a shift on a first aid post. If a serving firefighter watched you do it, it counts, and you can ask one of them for a firefighter letter of recommendation to send alongside.
Certifications Come Later
The Certifications block on the right takes four cards, each a name and a year. It is also the block that stops most people from applying at all, and it should be the least of their worries. The national recruitment service run by the volunteer fire council says plainly that no experience is needed and that most departments train new volunteers on the job. The block is there to hold what you have, not to prove you are ready.
Note: Where a card has an expiry, use the year you last renewed it rather than the year you first sat it. A chief reading 2091 on a CPR line will assume it has lapsed.
So fill in what you hold and leave the rest empty. A CPR card, a first aid certificate, a lifeguard qualification, a workplace fire warden course, all of it counts.
The Skills list underneath takes eight short entries, and the template includes a sensible set already. Keep yours to things somebody could check on a drill night. That combination of a thin Certifications block and a full Field Practice block is what every one of our no experience resume templates is arranged to handle.
The Copy You Send
This beginner volunteer firefighter resume template is made in Word and Google Docs, and both are fully editable. Pick the one you already use and save a PDF when you are finished. Most volunteer departments still take applications by hand or by email, and a PDF is right for both. Print it if you are dropping it at the station, where the photo and the two columns read well on paper.
Some combined or county services run recruitment through an online portal instead, and the software behind it turns your resume into plain text before it reaches anybody. Photos and split columns come through that step less reliably, so keep a plain single-column copy for those applications and take one from our ATS friendly resume templates.
Keep this template once you are on the roster. Add each certification as you earn it and the resume stays current for the price of one edit. When you have station time behind you and you are applying for a paid post, the firefighter resume template puts the work history back at the top, which is where a career application wants it.
FAQs
Yes, and most people do. The national volunteer recruitment service says no experience is needed and that most departments train new volunteers on the job, so the certifications you hold on day one are rarely what decides an application. Fill in the Certifications block with whatever you have, even a CPR card from work, and put your effort into About Me and Field Practice instead. Departments are looking for somebody who will turn out and finish the training.
Anything supervised, with a date and a place. A live-burn training weekend, an evacuation drill at work, a smoke alarm fitting day with the fire prevention team, a first aid post at a local event, a ride-along you arranged yourself. Name the place and the year the way you would name an employer and a start date. A chief reading it knows it was training, and what he is checking is that you have been near the work and came back.
Yes, in About Me, as a line about when you can turn out rather than a line about the job. Volunteer departments plan rosters around people with other work, so a chief has to know which nights and weekends you can cover and how far you live from the station. A sentence naming your availability and your drive time answers both before he reads anything else.
References
- Make Me A Firefighter, How to Become a Volunteer Firefighter, the National Volunteer Fire Council recruitment service, which states that no experience is needed and that most departments train on the job.
- National Volunteer Fire Council, Volunteer Fire Service Fact Sheet, on the number of volunteer firefighters reaching a low in 2023 and call volume more than tripling in the last forty years.
