Apparently, there is an email making the rounds advertising thousands of high-paying jobs at FEMA call centers and in the destroyed Gulf Coast area. THIS IS BOGUS. Details below the jump.
I received this particular email nearly two weeks ago from a jobs list I belong to. It seems to be getting a lot of circulation on the internet:
Subject: FEMA Emergency Call Center Positions Available Immediately - $15/hour
An excellent opportunity to assist victims of the disaster.
FEMA has a new Emergency Call Center at Prince Georges Plaza in Hyattsville, MD near College Park. They NEED 12,000 people to work 12 hr. shifts of simply logging the hurricane victims' claims of the location & value of their destroyed homes. The pay is $15/hr. and $22/hr. for overtime. If interested call 301-698-1070.
Please share with interested students, graduates, people in need.
If you know any young men age 18 and up who is looking for work, FEMA is offering $32.00 per hour for a team of men willing to go to New Orleans to help with the disaster and damage done by Hurricane Katrina. You can fax your resume to 281-445-0813 or call 770-696-9600 for more information. The telephone line is always busy, I contacted FEMA in D.C. and was provided the following:
Be prepared to leave within 3-5 days after your resume is reviewed and accepted. Pack basic personal care items, several pairs of durable pants, sufficient appropriate Tee shirts, underclothing, socks etc. (like you were going on an extended camping trip). Make arrangements for mail to be picked up and notify family members of your departure date. Currently cell phones don't operate but they anticipate in 2 weeks to have limited service available. Electricity is rare but bring cell phone chargers as they are being charged by generators. Personally I'd check with my Doctor to see if my tetnus etc. was up to date.
Come with a helping heart, and be prepared to do virtually anything- as all things help.
Good luck and God Bless you
I happened to know that the call center info was not accurate, and informed the jobs list coordinator. There were, that's past tense, 400 (not 12,000) FEMA call center jobs available. They were advertised on September 1 and they were all filled September 1. I had been sent an email that day from a friend who works for the feds, who had gotten the info from an internal email list, about a two-day job fair for the call center jobs at the College Park (MD) Best Western. I called the hotel immediately on receipt of the email, because neither of us were sure if it was legit, and the front desk answered the phone "Best Western College Park, if-you're-calling-about-the-job-fair-all-the-positions-have-been-filled, may I help you?" The next day the noon news featured droves of angry people being turned away at the hotel.
As for the jobs for "young men": The coordinator of the aforementioned job list (who is a state job placement specialist) sent the following email the next day:
Several people have contacted me via email in reference to the FEMA posting I sent this afternoon. After almost two hour of deep searching the internet. I was able to deep search the fax number in Houston Texas as belonging to UPM - Universal Project Management they provide project management around the world including Iraq. Below is their company description:
UPM was established by engineering and construction industry professionals with nearly 120 years of collective project execution experience. We bring years of successful performance in engineering and construction (E&C) to bear on your project. The results are profitable cost savings, improved bottom-line results and effective cash-flow for all phases of project management. Our proven project management techniques and project execution experts present the best support for our customers.
The key to our success is our people. UPM's employees range from engineering professionals to hands-on craftsmen who are available worldwide. With our talented and diverse employee base, UPM delivers unique and appropriate solutions tailored to meet your needs.
Our project management approaches, executed by our dedicated professionals, ensure your project's success from start-up to close-out.
I just got off the phone with a gentleman in UPM's operations side, who spoke with me as he was heading out the door. They are a FEMA contractor - the only people they are looking for at this time are engineering and construction types not general labor (general labor is in abundance - manifested as displaced N.O. workers). I am telephone conferencing with their HR director in the morning to find out the specs for the positions available. The gentleman said there are lots of construction and engineering jobs but the city is not safe until it has been evacuated and the roving gangs are arrested.
The company is requesting that you not send your resumes to the fax number at this time until you have had the specifications for the positions.
This email was from Sept. 13, and there has been nothing more posted to the list regarding "specification for the positions."
Once Rita hits, maybe FEMA will have more call center jobs open. Or maybe not -- they may not have the phone capacity to handle more call center staff. Certainly they aren't doing much of a job with the current setup; their 800 disaster number gives you a recording that says that if you are Katrina victim you ought to fill out a form on the web and then disconnects. (Why they think Katrina victims would be likely to have net access is a mystery.) So I think it likely they are at capacity and unwilling or unable to expand "just" for this. But that's just my opinion.
Anyhow, my point in posting this is that I know a lot of folks here are, like me, unemployed and desperate. I don't want anyone else to have to dig and dig and dig for info, get their hopes up, and ultimately be disappointed.