You Need People. The Industry Needs a Pipeline.

Imagine your team is getting pushed – really stretched thin. 

You could say yes to more work for the team if only you had the hands to pull it off. 

You’d hire – but there’s a problem. 

Where do you find people? 

Working for competitors? 

Hiring away from competitors is a short-term fix for an industry-wide problem. We can’t keep robbing from other companies if we’re going to grow the industry. 

Surely you've seen it; we need to bring people into the industry. We are not bringing people in at the rate that the demand increases and people are retiring. The math isn't mathing. 
 
But there lies the bigger problem - where are the students? 

WHERE ARE THE STUDENTS? 
In our industry, we have very few fire protection programs. Few locations, few graduates. There are only so many high schoolers who know about the fire protection industry before choosing a program. 
 
Maybe we look to bring in a few interns each year. Maybe we look for a few new hires in the hope that they grow into meaningful leaders on the team. 

But, where do you find them? 

Go to a local college career fair? Make a strong pitch for a student to split from their degree and go into fire protection, and hire them on the spot? 

What are the true chances of that? One in a hundred? One in five hundred? 

At those rates, are you going to attend all nearby career fairs? 

No; small and midsize employers know we can’t be at 12 regional career fairs in the hope of bringing over, maybe, one college student. It's a lot of time to put out for the chance meeting with your unicorn student.

It’s a scale problem.

WHAT'S BEEN TRIED
What else do we try? Connect with local college professors? Guest lectures? Create a career social media account?
 
The problem is, these things have been tried. They can be great - but we're still very short on talent.
 
Huge companies have recruiting staff. Maybe they get in front of enough talent, maybe not.
 
But for everyone else, the problem is scale and connectivity.

We can’t be everywhere at once. And we can’t exhaust ourselves in the hope of maybe finding an interested student.

SCALE & CONNECTIVITY
We need, as an industry, to find students where they are. We need to advocate for the upside of this awesome industry. And, when that first spark is lit, we need to connect those students with our opportunities in a consistent way.
 
What does MeyerFire have to do with it?

We’re not hiring big dogs – but we are good at connecting people. Whether via forums, learning, or resources, we do online connectivity and scale in slightly new ways.

NEW: STUDENT CONNECTOR
The concept for our new Student Connector, which launches today, is to find students who have shown even a little interest in fire protection – wherever they are – and connect them with employers seeking that talent.

So what we’re introducing today is a simple way to bridge that gap.

It’s meeting a scale problem with scale.

Easy for students to signup, easy for organizations to share opportunities with the students.

The Student Connector is a live online dashboard of students interested in fire protection to help employers find, recruit and hire new talent to the industry.

WHAT EMPLOYERS GET
The Student Connector is available to organizations on MeyerFire University (annual subscription).

You get visibility for students interested in fire protection. You get a regional awareness (who’s near you), and a really quick and easy way to identify potential interns or hires.

No extra cost, no referral fees, no recruiters.

Simple, for the industry and by the industry.

HOW IT WORKS
Students who we’ve connected with (online, at events, through student organizations, through the website) share basic information about where they are and what they’re seeking.

Employers can get instant alerts, or more commonly regular summary reports – and can then request and receive contact information via email, LinkedIn or by phone (however the student sets it up).

If you’re already on MeyerFire University – visit the Student Connector anytime here.
 
With new students, graduations, and placements, it’ll be an ever-evolving way to help find talent.


We're very excited about this and look forward to the possibilities of better connecting students - wherever they are - with great opportunities in our industry. Cheers to new possibilities!

​- Joe

​