About to interview. What are my odds?

[DrParasite]

you're 18 years old and still in High school..... without a HS diploma, your chances are slim. wait until your graduate, and then apply.... or if you are applying now, say you want to start working FT once you graduate in 2 months.

If I was running a business, I would be very hard pressed to hire anyone for an "adult" career who hasn't already finished high school (or earned their GED)

 

[johnrsemt]

Flight medics and nurses get paid enough that we have a lady who flies from New Mexico to Salt Lake City, then drives for 5 hours to work for 48 on, 24 off, then 48 on again.

 

[NomadicMedic]

Mainly because nobody took the time to properly educate them on what the job actually is.

Another failing in EMS education. I think we need to focus more on the handholdin' and less on the lifesavin'.

 

[akflightmedic]

I simply would NEVER hire a high school student for an ambulance service.

The list of BAD reasons greatly exceeds the short list of good. Even if "you" are different from all your peers, employers have to categorize and judge and at the end of the day it is mostly about risk mitigation. YOU are a HIGH risk and not one I would ever tolerate.

 

[hometownmedic5]

I simply would NEVER hire a high school student for an ambulance service.

The list of BAD reasons greatly exceeds the short list of good. Even if "you" are different from all your peers, employers have to categorize and judge and at the end of the day it is mostly about risk mitigation. YOU are a HIGH risk and not one I would ever tolerate.

First, let me say that I agree with you.

Second, I think the HSD is one of the many arbitrary mile stones we assign to coming of age in this country. I started in this business at 18, three months out of high school. My head was so far up my backside I couldn't have found south standing on the North Pole. The OP is a few months shy of graduation, and in your eyes unemployable. My point is that, in June(or July or May or whatever), what's going to be different? They will have their piece of paper, but they will only be marginally closer to actually being a functional adult.

We talk so regularly about raising the entrance requirements to our thing to improve the quality of our candidates. One of the principal reasons I'm in favor of adding a degree requirement(a position I support even though I don't hold a degree) certainly isn't the English composition credits or the environmental science course electives attached to a degree. It is that a degree takes time. Setting aside child prodigies, you're not going to college before you're 17/18. Two year associates and you're at least starting to get a handle not he whole faulting thing.

18 year old emts terrify me and I also wouldn't be in favor of hiring them. Sadly, at least on the commercial side, we cant live without them...

 

[akflightmedic]

I was EMT working for the County at age 18....I then became a 19 year old Paramedic working for the same county. I have been there, done that and viewed the world and myself as that of the OP....sadly, I would not listen then and I do not expect people of similar thought to listen now.

 

[DrParasite]

Wait a second.... you got the job right out of HS, with no college, and turned out pretty decently right? What is stopping the OP from being the next hometownmedic5, or Akflightmedic?

We talk so regularly about raising the entrance requirements to our thing to improve the quality of our candidates. One of the principal reasons I'm in favor of adding a degree requirement(a position I support even though I don't hold a degree) certainly isn't the English composition credits or the environmental science course electives attached to a degree. It is that a degree takes time. Setting aside child prodigies, you're not going to college before you're 17/18. Two year associates and you're at least starting to get a handle not he whole faulting thing.

18 year old emts terrify me and I also wouldn't be in favor of hiring them. Sadly, at least on the commercial side, we cant live without them...

Honestly, this type of age discrimination is one of the things that does piss me off. This person isn't ready for a job because they are too young. Age is a simple number, and often an arbitrary one. It's the same BS line of "your only a teenager, only in your 20s, there is no way you can be a supervisor or in management, you aren't ready for it."

Provide objective goals. Earn your HS diploma (I know this might shock you, but there is a HUGE difference in being a HS student and being a HS graduate; ditto being a college student, and being a college graduate). That's an objective goal completely unrelated to the age of a person. If that's your baseline, good.

18 year old EMTs don't scare me any more than any new EMT. Whether they are 18 or 40, they are still new EMTs, and had to pass the same requirements. They still have the same knowledge, education and experience (relevant to the job). Who is scarier: a 17 year old who just get their driver's license, or a 37 year old who just got their driver's license? they have the same level of education and experience behind the wheel. The baseline education standard should be the same, regardless of the chronological age of the person. Arbitrary numbers (if you aren't 30 years old, you are too young to be an EMT) don't help anyone.

give a young person clearly achievable goals, and they have a path to success; make those goals related to something he or she can't change and you will cause that person to ignore you.

 

[hometownmedic5]

Absolutely nothing says the the op cant make it work. It can be done.

While now I am an adult that takes my job seriously, tries to be a professional, tries to be a steward to my profession when I can and so on, this was not always the case. I started at 18. I didn't take it seriously. I lived for the 911 calls, everything else was a waste of my time. I came to work hung over(maybe still a little drunk) from time to time. I phoned in my daily chores and duties, I called in sick when I'm wanted to do something fun. I wasn't an adult. For the first couple of years of my career, I was what most of us despise. A juvenile hack who liked to play dress up. I am now able to recognize those traits as being bad and being a problem for advancement of this profession.

Here's the problem though, we dont get to choose our calls. While, for the most part, during that time I was doing IFT work, we also did the sort of peripheral 911(nursing homes, carefully selected mutual aid calls etc) calls common in the boston area. At any point in time, before I started taking this job seriously, I could have been charged with actually saving a life and I was woefully under qualified, and far too immature to be the guy.

I feel like my experiences in ems have been very typical and consistent with regional norms. I started young for one of the many privates, did IFT calls too numerous to count, worked secondary and primary 911. I dont think my journey is in any way unique, and looking at the rest of the guys and gals around me, it doesn't seem like they're breaking a new trail either.

I'm not discriminating. I'm merely recognizing that perhaps handling the keys of the ambulance to teenagers with a mandate to save the world isn't perhaps the best strategy.

 

[hometownmedic5]

The parallels you're trying to draw aren't logical. I'm not afraid of an 18 year old emt because they're a brand new emt. I'm afraid of them because they aren't(usually) grown up enough to handle the responsibility. The 35 year old day one emt is just as incompetent as the teenager, but they are(usually) able to adult at a level that far and away exceed the capacity of the teenager. That's the difference. It's not age, its maturity.

 

[EpiEMS]

The parallels you're trying to draw aren't logical. I'm not afraid of an 18 year old emt because they're a brand new emt. I'm afraid of them because they aren't(usually) grown up enough to handle the responsibility. The 35 year old day one emt is just as incompetent as the teenager, but they are(usually) able to adult at a level that far and away exceed the capacity of the teenager. That's the difference. It's not age, its maturity.

This is absolutely right. Age, while not the only thing, is very strongly associated with maturity.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk