This analysis compares two approaches of recruiting street-level firefighters
and takes a look at how these two approaches have affected their
work cognition and performance. By interviewing the stakeholders through
questionnaires, this analysis has found the following results: First, firefighters
who have graduated from police academy have relatively good work
cognition and work performance; Second, firefighters who have graduated
from the police academy perform better in disaster rescue missions, and nonpolice
academy graduates are good at project planning and paper work;
Third, firefighters who are non-police academy graduates do not receive
enough professional education and training, a drawback that has a great influence
on job performance; Fourth, the fire fighting entry examination focuses
only on writing tests, without making physical and technical requirements,
resulting in a gap between the students’ knowledge and needed skills. Based on the empirical findings, this analysis expects to be of help in
the development of firefighting human resources by proposing more adequate
measurements for education and training, and designing a better recruiting
mechanism-which hopefully will help street level firefighters
achieve their best performance.