Published on June 4th, 2021 | by Dr. Jerry Doby

It Takes a Wise Mind to Create Opportunities

It is easy for a person to work in a 9-5 job, complete their daily tasks, and carry on with the same routine for the rest of their lives. The lives of these people are mundane and lack passion. Such people are then categorized under the ordinaries, who are just ‘existing.’ Fortunately enough, the world is diverse, and so the mentality changes from person to person. Where there are people who like to stick to their routine jobs, there are plenty of others who take risks and create new opportunities for themselves and others. Brent Clayton is one personality who has made it to the list of opportunity creators and risk-takers.

Brent Clayton is one high-spirited individual who did not settle for mediocrity. He was always driven by a passion for helping others and contributing to the community through his work. It takes a creative mind to find a gap in the existing system and build an opportunity for themselves and the community; this is exactly what Brent did. He believed in himself and his ideas and managed to create a business and system that trains candidates for the grueling firefighter recruitment process. The business is called “Fire Recruitment Australia.” He is the Founder and was the CEO of the company from 2009 to 2020. He was the perfect person for the job, being a renowned firefighter, trainer, and instructor.

Belief Can Open New Doors of Opportunities

Opportunities don’t happen you create them

The two most important things that give a person the strength to fulfill their dreams are vision, belief, and confidence. One may have big dreams and high hopes, but they will have difficulty transforming their ideas and dreams into reality if they lack in these areas. Clayton is one individual who was passionate about his vision and had a clear plan of how he wanted to shape them.

Before joining the firefighting industry, Brent, too, has had ordinary jobs. He worked as a Prison Guard, the Australian military, and for a short period in fabrication and engineering, but he wanted more.

As an ambitious person, he visioned himself to own his company with the end goal of contributing to the community in a philanthropic manner. Brent started out taking small steps towards this goal. He managed to work with three of the largest Fire Services in Australia and Emergency Management Victoria in just over a ten-year period. He worked as a professional firefighter, trainer, and instructor during this time and found a gap in the industry very early on.

Working in the industry gave Brent an insight into every component of the firefighter DNA and an intricate understanding of what makes a good firefighter and, more importantly, how to hire the right people to become firefighters. He understood that many people wanted to join the fire service in a professional capacity, but only a few of them would be recruited due to the massive competition in the recruitment process. Sometimes the competition could be 20 spots with as many as 8000 applicants, pretty slim chances without the know-how.

He took his time to meticulously understand the dynamics of the recruitment system in all its forms. He then came up with an idea to fill the void between the recruitment process and the potential candidates, giving them the best chance possible to be selected. At this point, Clayton was fueled by two purposes; to make the firefighting industry more resilient, capable, and diverse and to provide services to good candidates through his business.

In 2009, he laid the foundation for his start-up, “Fire Recruitment Australia,” with a purpose to train candidates to pass the firefighter recruitment process and become firefighters. Through this company, he eased the recruitment process for potential firefighters while simultaneously adding more prepared candidates to the recruitment pool giving the services themselves a clearer picture of the talent they have to pick tomorrow’s firefighters from.

As the company was the first and only one of its kind when it was founded, it gained huge popularity as many candidates had been looking for help through the process. Being trained in all the facets of the recruitment process gave each candidate his or her best chance of ever being selected. Clayton’s expertise and knowledge played a crucial role here as he trained hundreds of people to gain employment with fire services and build their careers in the profession. He states, “the confidence of aspiring firefighters can disintegrate when they are dismissed during the firefighter recruitment process.“

To date, Brent has trained many young aspirants and has garnered the media’s attention because of the uniqueness and community-centric vision of his initiative. As part of his business journey, Brent initially created the best-selling book around this subject and his knowledge named Fire Services Recruitment: The Process to Success, which was first published in 2012 and still selling updated copies in book stores like Barnes & Noble. This book is an asset still today to those who are aspiring to become a professional firefighter someday.

Today, Brent’s small dream to contribute to the community’s well-being and own his own business has been transformed into an undeniable reality. And all of this is true because of his unrelenting belief and confidence in his vision and his ability to achieve it. His business has recently expanded to include New Zealand and is beginning to make a noticeable impact for applicants there as well.

As of 2021, Brent is an asset to the Australian firefighting industry and will continue to look for ways to improve the fire service and impact the community in the most positive way he can.

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About the Author

Dr. Jerry Doby Editor-in-Chief of The Hype Magazine, Media and SEO Consultant, Journalist, Ph.D. and retired combat vet. 2023 recipient of The President's Lifetime Achievement Award. Partner at THM Media Group. Member of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, the United States Press Agency and ForbesBLK.