If you love helping people in times of need, you may want to consider becoming an Emergency Management Specialist. By working as one, you'll be able to make sure that individuals are taken care of during disasters when they may not be able to take care of themselves or their families.

Emergency Situations

An Emergency Management Specialist works to ease the suffering caused by man-made and natural disasters. This can entail many different responsibilities. For instance, if you have this type of job, you could find yourself coordinating emergency shelter agencies so that there's enough room available for everybody that needs it. In the event of a hurricane or another natural disaster, you could be responsible for supervising the creation and implementation of evacuation routes. Emergency management specialists are also in charge of making sure that medicine, food and water all make it to where they need to go. Since all of these things cost money and somebody has to pay for it, you may also be needed to help communities apply for funding at the local, state or federal level. If you go into this line of work, you won't actually be on the ground handing out water bottles or rolling out sleeping bags at a shelter. Instead, you'll be the person coordinating all the activity and making sure that everything is working smoothly.

Preparedness

The more prepared a person is for an emergency, the less likely he or she is to need help from emergency services. Because of this and the fact that emergencies aren't always going on, an emergency management specialist often helps individuals and communities prepare. These plans could be for long-term emergencies or short-term ones. If you work as an emergency management specialist, you'll have to be able to help communities come up with procedures that are to be followed in the event of an emergency. You'll also help them come up with a recovery plan for when any immediate danger has passed. Once everything settles down, Emergency Management Specialists are also in charge of helping communities assess the amount of damage that has been done.

Work Environment and Job Information

If you want to be an emergency management specialist, you need to realize that your schedule may be quite haphazard. You may have regular hours during part of the year, but you'll also be asked to work irregular hours, such as at night or during holidays or weekends, when disaster strikes. You'll be given a nice salary for your labor, however. While the average American only makes around $45,000 per year, the average emergency management specialist makes over $10,000 more than that every year according the BLS. Job opportunities are expected to grow at an average pace during the next decade. In order to get a job as an emergency management specialist, you'll have to get at least a Bachelor's degree, and learning how to communicate with others is a must for anyone that wants this job.

Related Resource: Work for the CDC

When you get right down to it, this job is about making sure that emergency services are being run smoothly. An emergency management specialist helps people in need by making sure that everyone in an area that has been struck by disaster has access to aid.