How To Get A Job In Intelligence (Introduction)

Getting a job in intelligence is not easy. Some of the reasons why have to do with predictable things like security clearances. Some of the reasons are much less obvious.

The purpose of this series of posts is to explore the job market for intelligence analysts and to offer some advice based on years of talking to recruiters and watching students try to get jobs.

I will try to be as complete as possible. I intend to write about not only the national security but also the law enforcement, business and international intelligence job markets. I know, however, that I don't know everything so I invite anyone reading this to please post your comments to these posts if you have something useful or insightful to say.

I intend to focus on the entry-level, intel analyst positions as that is what I know best. Some of what I say will obviously apply to other jobs in the intel communities but I can't guarantee that it will. As they say, "Some local restrictions may apply."

OK, that is probably enough caveats; let's get started!

The First Problem

Take a second and go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Search for "chemical engineers." Pretty soon you will wind up with a page with some very detailed statistics on it. With almost no effort you can learn that chemical engineers make an average of about $88,000 a year, that more of these engineers are employed in Texas (specifically Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas) than anywhere else but that the chemical engineers making top dollar have jobs in San Jose, CA.

Now do a search for "intelligence". You will get a page that looks like this:


Sure, there are tons of good jokes we can make here (e.g. "Finally! We have proof! There is no intelligence at the Bureau of Labor Statistics..."), but that would be cruel and what I am really trying to do is demonstrate one of the fundamental problems of trying to get a job -- any job -- in intelligence: It is not a recognized labor category.

Because there is not a consistent set of terms describing intelligence jobs, finding where these jobs are listed is a matter of hunting and pecking around until you bump into them. Some places are better than others for finding intel jobs (and I will list as many of these places as I can find later in this series of posts), but no one place has all or even a majority of the jobs available in the various intelligence communities.

In addition, because no one organization is charged with tracking intelligence jobs (writ large) no one knows how many jobs there are out there, whether the field is growing or shrinking, what skill set is in demand now, what skill set will be in demand four years from now, etc. Sure, individual recruiters may have a good feel for their part of the market and everyone has an opinion but because there is no consistent labeling of jobs there are no consistent numbers for jobs offerings. Because there are no numbers, it is very difficult to get a feel for the market overall.

Next: The Intelligence Job Market From 20,000 Feet

Sunday Funnies: Advanced Cat Yodeling (YouTube)

Not much to say here but "Watch this video!"

What Would Happen If A Nuke Hit Your Town? (Carloslabs via Google Maps Mania)

Google Maps Mania recently pointed out an interesting applet built by Carlos Labs (see below) that gives an estimate of the amount of damage a variety of nuclear devices would cause if set off somewhere in the world.

The applet uses the Google Maps API and allows the user to take a look at the thermal, pressure and fallout damage (based on wind direction) from a variety of preset yields. At the low end is the 6 kiloton device recently exploded by the North Koreans. At the other end is the Soviet Union's 50 megaton Tsar Bomba which would burn or blow down everything from Washington to Baltimore. Fat Man, Little Boy, suitcase bombs and the dinosaur-exterminating asteroid impact are thrown in "for fun".

(Note: The app does not allow me to pre-set the starting point. It seems to randomly rotate to large cities. If your city pops up in the display, please do not assume that I hate you...)



For us cold warriors this is pretty old news. We were exposed to these kinds of graphics for most of our lives. For the younger generation, I suspect it is a little unnerving.

Anyone want to stay up and watch Special Bulletin tonight?

Interesting Vision Of A Mixed Reality World Courtesy Of MS (YouTube)

Johnny Holland is a pretty cool and very well-written online design magazine. They were the first (that I saw) to pick up on this new vision of a mixed reality courtesy of Microsoft.



I spent a good bit of time last year looking into virtual worlds and thinking about their future. I had a lot of help, of course, from some of the brightest people I know, but, in the end, I came away less convinced that we are about to insert ourselves into the Metaverse than we are headed towards a mixed reality future.

In this vision, lightweight, transparent and mobile devices allow the user to project "overlays" onto the real world in real time. The net effect is a sort of heads-up display that will allow us to optimize our attention. This MS video gives an idea of how this might impact the way we do ordinary activities in a mixed reality world.

Link List (Games Education Summit 2009)

The Game Education Summit was really an eye-opener for me. It encouraged me to take a look at games in the classroom in a whole new way. If you are interested in some of the other posts in this series, you can see the list below:

Live-Blogging The Game Education Summit (Part 1)
What's In A Name? (Part 2)
Open Creativity (Part 3)
Brenda Brathwaite Is Amazing! (Part 4)
Innovative Teaching Through Game Design (Part 5)

Here are some other links that I found at the Game Education Summit that were interesting:

Game Education Network
Art Institute of Pittsburgh
Panda -- Free game design software
Alice -- Free game design software for beginners
RIP -- a Remix Manifesto
Workbookproject.com -- a social network for those who want to be creative in the digital age