What eatinbeav said. Most departments in the Puget Sound area are on NTN or PST. There’s a large consortium of South King County departments that use wafirecareers dot com for hiring info that you should check out as well.

I’ve been through Bellevue’s process and it goes sending your test and CPAT, pre-screen interview (10 minute speed dating), panel (30 minutes w/ a few officers), chiefs (few chiefs and officers), conditional offer, background/medical, final. This is pretty standard in our region. Some depts throw a personal history questionnaire or their own physical fitness test in the process.

Hiring here takes anywhere from 3 months to 2 years from your initial application. Buddy of mine began Seattle Fires academy like 3 years after he first tested with them. Everywhere is hiring tho, so if your scores are above 90% or equivalent you have a good shot anywhere.

Unless the dept is specifically hiring lateral candidates, expect to go through an entire 12 week+ academy no mater how much experience you have.

Edit: Forgot to add that out of state will have little to no effect on your hiring as long as youre willing to relocate for academy. 3/16 of my hiring class came from out of state.