US citizens clamour to join CIA and FBI

Applications
to join the CIA and FBI have rocketed since the terrorist attacks of 11 September.

In
the past week alone the
CIA has received more than 3,000 prospective CVs, wheareas in a typical week it would expect about 500.

The
FBI has been so swamped with applications that it will now accept only online applications.

The
number of people applying for dangerous foreign undercover work has also
tripled to 300 a week.

"People
are looking for a way to serve their country, looking for something more
meaningful than what they had been doing," CIA
spokeswoman Anya Guilsher said.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

Email(Required)

OptOut

From time to time, we will send you emails about selected products, events and services from Personnel Today - but you can choose to opt-out at any time. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please tick this box.

Phone

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Δ

Guilsher
added that the CIA is particularly interested in new recruits who have a
foreign language. "If you’ve got Pashto, Farsi or Arabic, that would be of
interest to us," she said.

The CIA’s recruiting website states, "For the
extraordinary person who wants more than a job. You will need to deal with
fast-moving, ambiguous and unstructured situations that will test your resourcefulness
to the utmost."