First EMT position

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EMTPassion

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I'd like to get some advice on my situation. I'm fairly new to the industry, only have about 6 months of working experience now as an EMT. When I got hired on at the company I work for now, the boss said he would like for me to commit verbally to one year of employment here, no contract was signed though, so nothing "official, official" He asked this because of the amount of turnover the company goes through with it being a smaller service. The call volume we get here is quite erratic, it seems either we are running off our feet busy or we go days, or sometimes a week or more without getting any calls. I work in a rural EMS service. I'm finding that i'm not using the skills I learned and I fear i'm not advancing my experience like I should be after six months. My question is do you think I should stick it out here and at least get a good first reference in EMS, or look for a new position elsewhere? I know I should do whats best for my career, but at the same time i'd feel guilty for leaving after only working 6 months here. Kind of a sticky situation. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
I think a big part of this depends on whether or not you think you can get hired somewhere else without a solid reference. If the job market is tight in your area, that reference might be what gets you hired. If you think you can get hired without it and want to advance your career, I don't see much reason to stick around. Whatever you do, be courteous when you do leave, a letter from one person is not going to do much if the rest of the management didn't like the way you handled your departure. As you probably already figured out, EMS is a small word and one supervisor talking to another can make or break getting a job.
 
don't leave your current FT job until you have another FT job lined up.

if it's that slow, maybe you could do both.

one of those big warning signs for any employer is a high turnover rate. why is it so high? are there any long term employees?

sometimes a slow agency can lead to lots of sleeping time, which can be advantageous. use the down time to study for paramedic school, learn your coverage area, or take up a new hobby
 
I guess I exaggerated a little on the turn over rate part, the agency has had many long term employees, one who only resigned last month had been with the company for over 16 years, but the company had bad luck with a couple of fresh out of school EMT's who resigned after only two months, I took over one of their positions when I started here. I have been using the down time to keep up with studying and keeping my mind sharp. I think I probably could get hired on elsewhere if I did leave, but I know it wouldn't look great to future employers if I left earlier than my one year.
 
And yeah I wouldn't resign from this position unless I knew 100% I had another one lined up.
 
I will say this. If you can find a FT job wear you will be using the skills you learned in school, ESPECIALLY, your patient assessment skills (and doing an assessment on a routine dialysis call is NOT the same as doing an assessment on a stat patient), I would say take it get the hell out of where you are now. I found after working IFT BLS for 3 1/2 years, my skills got weak. It actually hurt me more than helping me.
 
Our service does almost all 911 emerg calls, I think i`ve only had one transfer since i`ve been here. So the calls we do get are decent calls for learning and keeping the skills up, just not enough of them. I`ve decided to keep my current job and maybe look for a casual position somewhere close thats a little busier. This way I don`t burn any bridges with my current boss and get a few extra shifts in elsewhere at the same time.
 
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