FBI Swamped With Applicants Post-Sept. 11

ByABC News
February 5, 2002, 1:49 PM

— -- The FBI says there has been an incredible response to its plea for applicants. Two schools near Ground Zero reopen. At the Superbowl, U2 leads a tribute to America and the victims of Sept. 11.

FBI Swamped With High-Quality Applicants

L O S A N G E L E S , Feb. 4 The FBI has been receiving numeroushigh-quality applications as it rushes to meet a nationwide goal ofhiring more than 900 agents in the next eight months. One of the toughest challenges facing the agency is sortingthrough the thousands of applications received since the terroristattacks. "It's busier than I've ever seen it," said Jan Caldwell, anFBI spokeswoman in San Diego and agent for 27 years. "And thequality of the applicants is just incredible. We are literallygetting rocket scientists applying." Several doctors, a tax lawyer and applicants with degrees inphilosophy, electrical engineering and computer science haveapplied, she said. The FBI has about 11,000 agents worldwide and typically receives25,000 applications a year, Caldwell estimated. "In the past, the spikes in people applying to be agents camefrom television or the movies," Caldwell said. "First came EfremZimbalist Jr.'s FBI series. Then there was Silence of the Lambs.In the '90s, it was X Files. This time it was Sept. 11, and thatobviously makes a difference." The agency's Los Angeles office was receiving about 100 jobapplications a day after Sept. 11, but the number has dropped offrecently, said Annette Nowak, a recruiting agent for the office. The four FBI offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diegoand Sacramento annually process about 11 percent of the FBI's totalof recruits nationwide. From 1996 to this year, the four primaryFBI offices in California tested 4,724 applicants and 466 recruitswere offered employment. When the agency announced its hiring goal last month, the FBIsaid its priorities are recruits with computer, engineering,science and foreign language skills, especially languages such asArabic, Farsi, Pashtu and Urdu. Skills in other languages,including Spanish, Russian and Japanese, remain in high demand.