Promotional Processes Your
Department Can Stand Behind
Promotional decisions carry significant consequences—for candidates, department leadership, the organization,
and the people those future leaders will serve.
220 Consulting & Logistics designs and administers structured fire-service promotional processes built around
fairness, independence, consistency, job relevance, and clearly documented results.
Our goal is straightforward: provide candidates a fair and meaningful opportunity to demonstrate their readiness for
greater responsibility while giving the department confidence in the process used to evaluate them.
WHY THE PROCESS MATTERS
The Process Matters as Much as the Result
A promotional process does more than produce a score or ranking.
It communicates to candidates how their organization approaches one of its most important responsibilities: selecting its future supervisors and leaders.
Candidates should know what is expected of them, receive consistent assessment conditions, and be evaluated on demonstrated performance rather than internal relationships or generalized impressions.
Department leadership should be able to understand how candidates were evaluated, how scores were produced, and how the process was administered.
A well-designed promotional process creates confidence on both sides.
Candidates deserve a process they can trust. Departments deserve a process they can stand behind
Independence does not remove the department from the process. Department leadership remains involved in establishing position expectations, process objectives, source materials, agency requirements, and the overall structure of the process.
The distinction is important:
The department defines what matters. The assessment process evaluates what candidates demonstrate.
WHY INDEPENDENCE MATTERS
Independent Assessment Creates Meaningful Separation
Fire departments are close organizations. People work together for years, share stations and shifts, respond to difficult incidents together, and develop professional relationships long before a promotional process begins.
Those relationships are part of the strength of the fire service—but they can complicate promotional assessment.
Even when everyone involved acts with complete integrity, internally administered assessments can create real or perceived concerns about familiarity, favoritism, predetermined outcomes, or inconsistent evaluation.
Independent assessment creates meaningful separation between existing organizational relationships and the evaluation of candidate performance.
220 uses experienced outside fire-service assessors operating within a defined assessment and scoring framework. Candidates are evaluated on the performance they demonstrate during the process—not on reputation, relationships, or organizational history.
BUILT AROUND FAIRNESS AND CONSISTENCY
Every Candidate Deserves the Same Opportunity
Fairness does not mean making an assessment easy, and it does not mean every candidate will perform equally.
It means providing candidates a consistent opportunity to demonstrate what they know and how they perform.
220 promotional processes use defined procedures designed to control unnecessary variation in areas such as:
- Candidate instructions
- Assessment conditions
- Timing
- Information available to candidates
- Scenario administration
- Assessor preparation
- Evaluation criteria
- Scoring procedures
- Candidate movement and process controls
- Process documentation
The objective is to ensure that differences in results reflect differences in candidate performance—not differences in how the process was administered.
Assessment components are selected and developed to provide candidates meaningful opportunities to demonstrate the knowledge, judgment, leadership, communication, and job-related behaviors appropriate to the position.
The result is a promotional process designed around the job—not simply a collection of generic exercises.
BUILT FOR THE POSITION
Assess the Job Candidates Are Actually Seeking
A Driver/Engineer should not be assessed the same way as a Captain. A Captain process should not simply be repackaged for a Battalion Chief.
As responsibility increases, the decisions, behaviors, and expectations of the position change. The promotional process should change with them.
When developing a process, 220 considers factors such as:
- Rank and position responsibilities
- Department organizational structure
- Operational environment
- Department policies and procedures
- Leadership and supervisory expectations
- Candidate population
- Agency priorities
- Applicable process requirements
- Available facilities and resources
- Timeline and logistical considerations
PROMOTIONAL ASSESSMENT COMPONENTS
Different Responsibilities Require Different Assessments
A complete promotional process may incorporate several assessment methods, each providing candidates a
different opportunity to demonstrate readiness for the position.
The specific components used in a 220 promotional process are selected and developed based on the rank,
responsibilities being evaluated, agency requirements, and objectives of the process.
Written Examination
Custom promotional examinations developed from agency-designated source materials to evaluate job knowledge and command of established references.
In-Basket Exercise
Candidates work through competing tasks, communications, problems, and responsibilities representative of those encountered in supervisory and command positions.
In-basket exercises can evaluate organization, prioritization, written communication, judgment, delegation, follow-through, and decision-making.
Fireground Tactical Simulation
Candidates are placed in realistic command situations requiring them to assess conditions, establish priorities, deploy resources, communicate decisions, and respond as conditions develop.
Tactical exercises are designed around the operational responsibilities and command expectations associated with the rank being tested.
Leadership Scenario
Candidates address realistic personnel, supervisory, organizational, or leadership challenges requiring them to analyze the situation, establish an approach, communicate decisions, and explain their reasoning.
Role-Play Exercise
Candidates interact with a trained role player in a structured scenario involving issues such as employee performance, conflict, coaching, counseling, customer concerns, or other supervisory responsibilities.
The interactive format allows assessors to evaluate not only what a candidate says should be done, but how the candidate actually handles the interaction
Structured Interview
Candidates respond to a standardized series of questions developed around the position and behaviors being evaluated.
Defined questions, administration procedures, and evaluation criteria provide a consistent framework for assessing candidate responses.
Presentation Exercise
Candidates organize and deliver information to a defined audience, allowing evaluation of communication, organization, professional presence, analysis, and the ability to respond to questions.
Written Exercise
Candidates prepare a job-related written product that may evaluate analysis, organization, judgment, written communication, and the ability to clearly document or explain decisions.
Driver/Engineer Practical
Practical exercises evaluate job-related Driver/Engineer responsibilities through structured performance scenarios.
Depending on the position and agency, assessments may include apparatus operations, pumping, operational problem-solving, and related responsibilities.
THE 220 ASSESSMENT APPROACH
Structure Creates Confidence
Realistic assessment requires candidates to make decisions, communicate, prioritize, solve problems, and
respond to changing conditions.
Meaningful evaluation requires those performances to be assessed through a consistent framework.
220 brings those two requirements together through structured assessment design and administration.
Job Relevant
Assessment components are selected and developed around the responsibilities, decisions, and expectations associated with the position being evaluated.
Behaviorally Based
Candidates are evaluated on defined, observable behaviors demonstrated during the assessment rather than generalized impressions of performance.
Standardized
Instructions, timing, assessment conditions, available information, and administrative procedures are controlled to provide candidates with consistent conditions.
Independently Assessed
Experienced outside fire-service assessors evaluate candidate performance using established behavioral criteria and scoring procedures.
Individually Scored
Each assessor independently evaluates and scores the performance demonstrated by the candidate using the established assessment framework.
Documented
Scores, assessor records, administration materials, and process documentation are maintained through defined procedures to provide the department with a clear record of how the process was conducted and how results were produced.
CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE
Challenging Should Not Mean Unclear
A promotional process should challenge candidates at the level of the position being sought. It should not challenge them simply because the rules or expectations of the assessment are unclear.
Candidates receive standardized information and instructions regarding the process, including the rules, timing, assessment structure, and administrative expectations appropriate to each component.
Where appropriate, 220 can also provide candidate orientation or preparation before the assessment process.
Clear administration does not make an assessment easier.
It allows the difficulty to come from the knowledge, decisions, judgment, communication, and behaviors being evaluated rather than unnecessary ambiguity in the process itself.
ASSESSORS
Independent Evaluation. Common Standards.
Assessors play a critical role in the fairness, consistency, and credibility of a promotional process
220 uses experienced fire-service professionals selected to serve as independent assessors appropriate to the rank and requirements of the process.
Before assessment begins, assessors receive structured preparation addressing the exercises, behavioral criteria, scoring methodology, documentation requirements, and administration procedures.
Assessors work from a common assessment framework, but each independently evaluates the performance demonstrated by the candidate.
The objective is not to reach consensus.
The objective is to provide multiple independent professional evaluations of candidate performance using the same defined standards
DOCUMENTATION AND DEFENSIBILITY
A Process Should Be Explainable After Assessment Day
The value of structure does not end when the final candidate completes the process.
A department should be able to understand how the assessment was administered, what criteria were used to evaluate performance, how scores were produced, and what documentation supports the results.
220 uses defined scoring, administration, and documentation procedures throughout the promotional process to create a clear record of how candidates were evaluated.
No assessment process can eliminate every question, challenge, or disagreement. A structured, consistently administered, job-relevant, and well-documented process, however, provides a stronger foundation for explaining and supporting the results.
That foundation is an important part of process defensibility—and an important reason to establish the process correctly before assessment begins.
This approach provides the department with the benefits of an independently developed and administered process while preserving appropriate agency involvement in the decisions that shape it.
It also reduces the substantial internal workload associated with developing and administering a complex promotional process—but workload reduction is a consequence of the model, not its primary purpose.
The primary objective remains a fair, consistent, job-relevant, independent, and well-documented promotional process.
COMPLETE PROCESS MANAGEMENT
Your Department Defines the Destination. 220 Manages the Process.
Department leadership should remain involved in the decisions that belong to the department.
220 works with agency leadership to understand the position, identify organizational expectations, establish process objectives, determine appropriate source materials, address agency requirements, and approve the overall assessment structure.
From there, 220 can assume the specialized work required to develop, prepare, coordinate, and administer the promotional process.
Services may include:
- Process planning and design
- Assessment development
- Candidate orientation and preparation
- Assessor recruitment and preparation
- Assessment materials and documentation
- Process logistics
- Assessment-day administration
- Scoring and quality review
- Results documentation
- Executive process reporting
- Candidate feedback, when included
Build a Process Worth Standing Behind
The quality of a promotional process influences more than the final scores. It influences candidate confidence,
organizational trust, and the department's ability to support the decisions that follow.
If your department is planning an upcoming promotional process, tell us about the position, anticipated candidate
population, timeline, and what you want the process to accomplish.
We can help build a process designed for the responsibility of the decision being made
Discuss Your Next Process