A graduate school dean and professor told me, “If you read the literature of your field for 30 minutes per day, you will be in the top 5% of your field.”
His encouragement for us to be lifelong learners and prioritize our professional development has stuck with me for 30 years. It is timeless advice for any of us to keep pursuing knowledge, stay current, and see how the world looks beyond our office or station.
Firefighter professional development
Professional development was a theme of the 2024 What Firefighters Want survey. More than 1,300 respondents answered the question, “How often do you seek out professional development opportunities in your field?” A reassuring number of respondents regularly seek out professional development, with 20% responding daily and another 26% selecting weekly.
Respondents were asked to check all that apply for the type of professional development opportunities they voluntarily participated in in the past 12 months. An impressive 93% of respondents said they attended classroom training. Almost half (49%) attended an industry conference, and more than three-quarters (77%) attended hands-on training.
Many of those same respondents also sought out online training. More than 80% read industry media, with most respondents also listening to podcasts (56%) and attending webinars (66%). These results represent a huge commitment to professional development and lifelong learning, especially in contrast to the small number of respondents (3%) who never seek out professional development or the less than 1% who did no voluntary professional development in the past 12 months.
Be intentional about your professional development
The What Firefighters Want survey also asked respondents, “What is your biggest barrier to taking steps to advance your career development?” The top response was lack of time due to work and personal commitments (36%). If this is the case for you, try some of these ideas to make time for professional development.
- Go deep: The breadth of firefighter knowledge is a mile wide and for many topics an inch deep. Pick an area to go deep. Become your department or station’s expert in vehicle extrication, ventilation, critical care, risk reduction or some other topic that you are passionate about investigating further, moving from a generalist to an expert. Going deep will help focus your learning passion and build your confidence.
- Put learning on the schedule: The 20% of respondents who seek out daily professional development likely schedule time for their daily professional development or match it with another activity, like reading FireRescue1 content during the morning coffee break or watching a helmet cam video on YouTube after dinner instead of a game show or movie. If you’re serious about professional development, add it to your schedule.
- Track and share: At its core, the 75 Hard fitness challenge is an undertaking in personal accountability. If one or more of the daily activities – exercise, reading or nutrition is missed – the participant restarts at zero days until they reach 75 consecutive days. Make professional development a part of your personal accountability plan. Set a specific and measurable daily professional development goal, such as “I will read one industry media article each day,” and use a simple system, like a checkmark in a notebook or smartphone notes app, to track daily progress toward the goal. Sharing your goal with colleagues, friends and family is another way to keep yourself accountable.
- Microlearning is professional development: If you only have a few minutes for professional development, pick a learning method and content type that fits your available time. In one to 10 minutes, you can:
- Read an industry media article or eNewsletter
- Read a few pages or more of a book
- Watch a video on YouTube
- Watch or listen to a part of webinar or podcast
Don’t be disappointed in yourself if you didn’t finish the article, book chapter, video or podcast. Instead, look forward to continuing to learn during your next dedicated professional development time.
- Learn as you complete another activity: I mostly read books in the few minutes between when I get to bed and when I fall asleep. Not only does reading distance me from smartphone and TV screens, but it also gives me a few minutes of learning or escape. A few of the activities that can be combined with professional development are exercise, commuting, home or yard work, and station chores. In the age of smartphones, professional development is always at our fingertips and a few clicks away.
Work as a team, learn as a team: Professional development is often best when it’s done with others. Unlike mandatory training, which you likely complete as a department or station, voluntary training can occur with just a couple of other people with shared passions or interests.
Do you know other firefighters, in real life or online, who might join you in a group focused on learning more about the profession? This could be a tactics-focused club that watches helmet cam videos and discusses fire behavior, suppression equipment, scene communications and incident management.
- Ask an AI coach: If you don’t know where to start or feel like you need a partner to help you get started, try using generative AI as your professional development coach. Here’s a sample prompt:
As a five-year firefighter preparing to begin the promotion process to company officer, I’m seeking to strengthen my fireground risk assessment and decision-making skills in preparation for greater leadership responsibility. Please design one brief (5–10 minute) daily professional-development activity that:
- Presents a concise scenario or case-study excerpt.
- Asks me a series of targeted questions to answer.
- Provides targeted feedback on my responses to those questions.
- Guides me to identify at least one actionable follow-up step I can apply as I step into a company officer role.
Share your tips
How do you make professional development a priority? Share your tips with the editor and we’ll consider adding to this article.
