Recruitment Review

At Fire and Emergency New Zealand, we are committed to attracting and selecting the best people to join our organisation. As part of this, we are undertaking a review of our recruitment processes for career firefighters and communication centres.

To make sure we are a modern and fit for purpose organisation, and we’re meeting the needs of our communities, it is important we regularly review our recruitment practices. To support this, we are undertaking a comprehensive review of our career firefighter and communication centre recruitment processes to ensure it remains fair, effective, and aligned with our current operational requirements. We are calling this the “Recruitment Review”. 

What will the review cover? 

This review will look at every stage of a candidates’ recruitment journey, from marketing and attraction, to testing, selection and appointment. Our goal is to identify and remove any biases or barriers that may limit opportunities for skilled individuals from all backgrounds to successfully complete the recruitment process.  

This review is not intended to lower our recruitment standards; our operational roles require highly capable individuals to ensure both our success and safety of our people. Instead, we want to ensure that the processes we undertake remain fit for purpose and accurately test for the skills and competencies required for our current operational requirements.

What is the scope of the review? 

The recruitment review will look at each stage of recruitment, consider how it currently works and identify if there are any barriers along the way. The stages include: 

• How the recruitment process currently operates for career firefighters and the communication centres 

• How we attract candidates to be interested and apply to become a firefighter or communication centre member 

• The process that candidates take including application, cognitive testing*, psychometric testing, physical pre-entry test*, practical assessment, formal interview, final selection, physical testing re-evaluation.*  

*For firefighting applicants only.

When reviewing each stage, we will look to identify any bias or barriers that might be in place and provide recommendations on how we could remove these. 

The project will work closely with key operational and non-operational personnel from across the organisation. We will regularly engage with a range of stakeholders, including our union partners, to ensure fit for purpose recommendations to recruitment are made.  

The initial review will run through to 30 June 2025  with a recommendations paper being submitted for consideration to the Eke Taumata -  Executive Leadership Team. Any approved recommendations will be developed and delivered after this time and updates on this will be provided on this page. 

Who is leading the review?

The Team
Nicole Davenport Recruitment Review Lead  Nicole is on secondment from the Recruitment team. You can email her at: recruitmentreview@fireandemergency.nz	Brendan Nally   Director, Service Delivery Operations   Brendan is the Service Delivery Leadership Team’s member on this project
Nicola O’Neill   National Manager, People Operations  Nicola is the Lead Business Owner for this project and supporting this as a Subject Matter Expert.	Nicky Chilton   National Manager, Organisational Development  Nicky is supporting this project as a Subject Matter Expert.

How can you get involved?

We want to make sure we include expert advice and a range of voices throughout the recruitment review, so we’ve set up a Recruitment Review Working Group who will relay information from meetings back to their team, union or network to secure feedback.

We are also working closely with our Union partners who will be part of the working group, and will share information with their members. We will also be receiving input from our Eke Taumata Internal Advisory Rōpū. 

If you have any feedback, insights or questions relating to the Recruitment Review, you can email the team at recruitmentreview@fireandemergency.nz 

 

Where can you find updates?

Updates will be posted on this Portal page and shared with the working group, Eke Taumata Internal Advisory Rōpū and with our Union partners. If you have a pātai on this project, please email the team at recruitmentreview@fireandemergency.nz.