Peoria Fire Department is gearing up for fall recruitment by thinking outside the box to attract talent.
Interim Fire Chief Shawn Sollberger said recruitment numbers have been down for a while.
“What we’re used to is hundreds of people wanting to be a firefighter, and now we’re running into dozens of people wanting to be firefighter,” he said. “We’re actually cautiously optimistic to be honest with you, and we’ve done a lot of recruiting efforts with our recruiting team.” In an effort to reach a wider audience, Sollberger said they are using new recruitment tactics, like the City of Peoria Career Fair this fall.
“It would be a unique and just really trying to get focused on people wanting to be employees for the City of Peoria,” he said.
Another method is using social media.