Interested In A Funeral Service Career?

Thinking About A Career in Funeral Service?

Select Your Route To A Career In Funeral Service. A funeral director (FD, LFD, CFSP, FD&E, Mortuary College graduate), also known as a mortician or undertaker, is a professional involved in the business of funeral rites. These tasks often entail the embalming and burial or cremation of the dead, as well as the planning and arrangement of the actual funeral ceremony. FDs may at times be asked to perform tasks such as dressing (in garments usually suitable for daily wear), casketing (placing the human body in the container), and cosmetizing (applying any sort of cosmetic or substance to the viewable areas of the person for the purpose of enhancing appearances).

Most modern day funeral homes are run as family businesses. The majority of morticians work in these small, independent family run funeral homes. The owner usually hires two or three other morticians to help him. Often, this hired help is in the family, perpetuating the family's ownership. Most funeral homes have one or more viewing rooms, a preparation room for embalming, a chapel, and a casket selection room. They usually have a hearse for transportation of bodies, a flower car, and limousines. They also normally have choices of caskets and urns for families to purchase or rent.

Are you interested in:

• Helping Others?
• The Human Biological Services
• Community Involvement?
• A Business Environment?

A Funeral Service Professional:

• Works with the bereaved, providing sensitive, effective intervention during a time of emotional need.
• Is a professional caregiver who enables families and communities to express their concern for life and the living.
• Is a motivated man or woman who practices a unique vocation and who is legally required to possess certain professional qualifications.
• Is involved in a variety of activities within the community.
• Carries out administrative and logistical tasks required by law, custom and accepted practice.

Duties and responsibilities of a funeral professional:

• Provides support to the bereaved during initial stages of their grief.
• Arranges and directs funeral ceremonies.
• Arranges for transfer of the deceased from the place of death.
• Prepares the body according to the wishes of the survivors and requirements of the law.
• Secures information for legal documents.
• Registers death and other legal papers.
• Assists survivors with details for filing claims for death benefits.
• Helps individuals adapt to changes in their lives following a death through post-death counselling and support group activities.

Why should you enter funeral service?

• You are a caregiver who desires to serve others.
• You believe that ceremony is an effective means of expressing feelings and meeting needs.
• You are tolerant of ways in which people of different faiths and cultures express their feelings and practice their beliefs.
• You are interested in the technical sciences.
• You exhibit sensitivity and compassion for those with whom you are in contact.
• You are interested in learning all aspects of a business.