Part 5 -- Beyond The Big Three: Jobs In Commercial Intelligence Agencies, Think-tanks And NGO's (How To Get A Job In Intelligence)

Part 1 -- Introduction
Part 2 -- The Intelligence Job Market From 20,000 Feet
Part 3 -- The Good News!
Part 4 -- Even Better News!

When most people think of jobs in intelligence, they immediately think of the CIA or other national agencies. A few think about law enforcement positions and even fewer think about the place, oddly enough, where most of the jobs actually reside -- in business.

This breakdown is mirrored in a survey I have been running on another of my websites (more on that later) for the last couple of years. You can see the current results below:



Only about 3% are looking for jobs beyond these three categories. My theory is that most people just don't know about all of the opportunities in intelligence analysis or intelligence analysis-like jobs in commercial intelligence agencies, think-tanks and non-governmental organizations.

Commercial Intelligence Agencies

The "commercial intelligence agency" is my neologism for all those entities out there who are essentially doing what intelligence agencies do but they do it for profit. The granddaddy of this type of organization is, of course, Jane's. Jane's has been around since 1865 and produces some of the best information and analysis on defense and defense industry matters for business and national security clients.

Jane's is also on almost every desktop in the national security community (which is one of the reasons we offer an nearly complete subscription to their service to our students here at Mercyhurst). A quick search of IHS, Jane's parent site, shows 22 jobs with the word "analyst" in the title.

There are others, of course. STRATFOR and IJet are two more "cia's" that are extremely well respected. Other firms are more specialized, such as the Economist Intelligence Unit and Cyveillance (which focuses on cybercrime). All periodically offer jobs through their sites.

Beyond the growing number of cia's, there are also the large consulting firms such as PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte and Accenture. Most of the jobs in these fields require specialized business backgrounds, so entry-level opportunities might be limited for pure intel analysts but not impossible. For example, Mercyhurst intel studies graduates work or have worked at two of the three companies listed above. All of these companies have robust internship programs which, in turn, could lead to what would be a very good job.

Think Tanks

There are a ton of think-tanks, such as The Carnegie Endowment For International Peace, The Cato Institute, the RAND Corporation and The Heritage Foundation, that do analysis. The truth is, however, that there are often some high barriers to entry into these types of positions and not all of them will be a good fit for a generic analyst.

If you do not have the special skills required of these high profile positions, an internship might be the best way to get a job with one of these institutions. Most of these organizations offer robust internship possibilities (although many of them are unpaid).

Likewise, while the ones mentioned above are among the most high profile institutions in the country, there are a number of other think tanks -- often at a state or local level -- that would be an easier "fit" for an entry level analyst.

Non-Governmental Organizations

This category overlaps, to a certain extent, with the think-tank category but is often characterized by an explicit advocacy position. Analysis is often a core product of these organizations but it is articulated from a particular point of view.

This does not necessarily mean it is biased, but it is focused, and if the job seeker does not share that focus, the fit is unlikely to be very good. For example, the Sierra Club produces analysis but if you don't accept climate change as fact, I would predict that any job involving analysis you might get with the organization would be pretty unsatisfying.

Even more so than with think-tanks, the jobs here are not as plentiful and internships are more likely to be unpaid. The work can be enormously rewarding, however. Two good examples of organizations that examine topics that would be fascinating to many analysts are the Federation Of American Scientists and Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project.

Just A Few More Thoughts...

These three broad categories are really just that: Categories. There are obviously many more opportunities in these fields than I can catalog in these few paragraphs.

Furthermore, virtually any job from any of the organizations listed above will require a deep search of their job listings (jobs in these categories, if available, are unlikely to be titled "intelligence analyst", for example. A more nuanced and time consuming search strategy will almost certainly be necessary to find a job that is a good fit for a particular set of analytic skills).

My primary purpose is to encourage job seekers in "intelligence" (and, particularly, "intelligence analysis") to think more broadly about their field and where they might fit into it.

Next: Beyond Borders

Part 4 -- Even Better News!! (How To Get A Job In Intelligence)

(Note: First, I apologize to all about the frequency of these posts. Life is getting in the way, unfortunately, and the best I can do right now is move forward in fits and starts. Second, if you are new to the series or have not yet had a chance, I strongly recommend you take a look at the previous posts and, in particular, the comments. Many people have taken the time to add their own insights to mine or to ask good questions which I have tried to answer. The series is more useful to everyone due to their efforts.)

Part 1 -- Introduction
Part 2 -- The Intelligence Job Market From 20,000 Feet
Part 3 -- The Good News!

The skills that the intelligence professional possesses are in high demand throughout the business world. In fact, the President's Council Of Economic Advisers recently issued a report that stated, "Employers value workers who can think critically and solve problems. Many highly-paid occupations require workers with good analytic and interactive skills." Sounds like an intel analyst to me (except for maybe the "highly paid" part...).

In fact, the largest and the fastest growing job market for intelligence and, in particular, intelligence analysts, is likely to be companies who need the skills that the typical intelligence analyst possesses in order to understand the broad range of largely unstructured data that confronts the corporate decisionmaker.

Our own conservative estimate is that there are close to half a million jobs currently in this market and more than 50,000 (yes, 50,000) jobs will be added over the next 5-10 years. These numbers are based on a variety of statistics but before I get into those, I need to outline some of the challenges in this area.

The Challenges

The first problem is definitional. The same Council Of Economic Advisers report I cited above also says, "In 2003, for example, a quarter of American workers were in jobs that were not even listed among the Census Bureau’s Occupation codes in 1967, and technological change has only accelerated since then." Needless to say, "intelligence analyst" wasn't (and still isn't) one of them.

What do we call intelligence professionals working in the business world? When you want to do a job search, what key terms do you use?

Well, one you shouldn't use is "business intelligence". This term has been appropriated by a wide variety of software companies who produce applications that allow companies to examine in greater detail the structured information that they already have. This information is mostly about the internal workings of the organization and the output of these programs is designed to support recommendations for improving the efficiency or profitability of a company's operations.

These software packages typically do not focus on analyzing the unstructured data that swirls around the outside of the organization. In short, it is not the kind of "intelligence" we are talking about here. Our kind of intelligence focuses on events and organizations that are outside the control of but still relevant to the business we are tasked to support. This data -- which can include blog posts and tweets and random emails -- is largely unstructured and requires a vastly different skill set and methods to understand.

So, if not business intelligence, then what? I have done dozens of studies for businesses of all sizes. In almost all cases, the CEOs and managers I have worked with are interested in two things: Where is my market and what are my competitors doing? It is no surprise then that the terms "competitive intelligence" and "market intelligence" are worth using to find jobs.

Check out the growth rates in the two charts below for jobs bearing these terms (found by my colleague, Prof. Shelly Freyn on one of the better job search engines out there, Indeed.com):


The problem is that these terms are not industry standards. You could just as easily search for jobs as a "market analyst" or a "research analyst" or a "marketing specialist in competitive research" or many others. The Bureau of Labor Statistics uses the term "market research analysts" but it is unclear precisely which kinds of jobs this definition includes. The wide variety of terms (coupled with the red herring of "business intelligence") makes hunting for the right kind of intelligence job in the business world a bit of a pain.

The second challenge is getting employers to recognize the need for intelligence. We know, for example, of a number of companies who refuse to call the positions "intelligence" positions because they think it implies that they practice industrial espionage. You can usually get past this objection with some discussion (the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professional's and the American Marketing Association's positions on the ethics of their professions go a long way towards alleviating some of these concerns).

Even if you can get past the spook factor, though, there is still a perception by many businesses that they do not need intelligence. My technique in these cases is to ask the managers and executives I deal with, "Who in your company has it as a fundamental part of their job -- as part of their job description -- to systematically examine all the factors relevant to your company's success but outside your company's control, integrate those factors as necessary and provide estimates of how those factors will change over time in order to support your planning processes?"

The answers vary, of course. Some companies have market analysts but they are not tasked to look at the competition. Others have competitive intelligence and market analysts but clearly have other intelligence needs that aren't being met (like the company with a global presence that needs to understand if its employees are likely to get kidnapped or the company who transports critical raw materials in ships that travel off the coast of Somalia...).

Even if all the various needs are covered, no one is integrating the reports, coordinating the activities or providing meaningful estimates about how conditions are likely to change. Some places have even told me that performing this function is "everyone's job" but I just laugh (I can do that because I am a professor and not a consultant).

No matter what the answer, the discussion leads to the follow-on question: "Don't you think it would be useful to have someone who does all this for you?" The answer is always, "Yes" but it still translates only slowly, if at all, into intelligence jobs.

Even if the company or organization accepts the need for intelligence and even if there is job position available, the final challenge is to get the business to understand the kind of intelligence qualifications necessary for the job. All too often companies look to particular degree fields which are inappropriate for their needs. The most common example is looking for a specialist when a generalist would do a better job.

Imagine you are an engineering company and you have lots of engineers who do engineering stuff really well. You need to understand the environment -- political, social, economic, competitive -- in which the company will be operating. Who do you hire? Too often, I see this kind of company go after an engineer to fill this kind of analytic position.

This is an expensive mistake. The engineer that gets hired to do this is likely just waiting to move to a "real" engineering position and costing the company an arm and a leg in the process. In addition, this new hire will speak the language of engineering but is less well prepared than an intel analyst (who wants the job and is likely to stay in it) to look at the broader range of issues in which the company is interested.

Back To The Numbers

Despite these challenges, the market potential here for intelligence analysts is enormous, dwarfing the numbers of analysts needed in the Law Enforcement or National Security realms.

According to data Shelly found on the Bureau of Labor Statistics site, the number of "market research analysts" alone is set to rise from 234,000 in 2006 to 281,000 (+47,000) by 2016. Other analyst positions within the business community are almost certainly at least partially intelligence analyst positions by another name. How many of the 236,000 "financial analysts", for example, are actually looking that the risk posed by political factors in foreign countries in much the same way as a CIA Desk Officer? If it is anything close to 10%, then the number of jobs in this sector alone exceeds the total number of analysts (17,000) in the US national security intelligence community. Under these circumstances, I feel more than comfortable with a 50,000 increase estimate.

Resolving the challenges inherent in getting a job in the corporate world as an intel analyst are going to take some time. Intelligence has to grow up as a discipline and realize that is more than James Bond or George Smiley. Until this happens, it is unlikely that the world of corporate intelligence will become easier to move around in. In the meantime, see the job hunt as a test of your analytic skills with the full knowledge that these woods are full of game.

Next: Beyond The Big Three

Part 3 -- The Good News! (How To Get A Job In Intelligence)

Part 1 -- Introduction
Part 2 -- The Intelligence Job Market From 20,000 Feet

The US National Security Community, while the best known, is not, however, the only place to get a job as an intelligence analyst. There are many jobs available in law enforcement, business, and with non-governmental organizations. While not all of these jobs label themselves "intelligence" positions (and more on that later), they all require what is essentially the intelligence analyst skill set.

Intel Analyst Jobs In Law Enforcement

Law enforcement agencies employ a significant number of intelligence and crime analysts. The FBI alone employs more than 2000 analysts (with plans to hire 321 in 2010). While many of these positions are in Washington, the FBI also stations analysts around the country in Field Intelligence Groups, making this an attractive hiring option for people who can't or don't want to move from home.

Beyond the FBI, however, there are a number of other Federal agencies and organizations that use analysts. The Department of Homeland Security employs a very large number of intelligence analysts while the Drug Enforcement Administration and the US Department Of Treasury (through its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) both employ intelligence analysts. One of the best places to work, I think, is the US Coast Guard. We have placed a number of interns with the "coasties" and they all come back pretty positive about their experience.

All of these agencies are part of what is formally called the US Intelligence Community and the total number of jobs available should have been included in the analysis I did yesterday. I am mentioning these positions here primarily because students have a tendency to focus on the CIA when thinking about intelligence jobs and they ignore these other places with intelligence functions that are every bit as interesting and as challenging as the ones in the Agency.

Beyond The Feds

If these other federal agencies are often overlooked, an even more ignored source of intelligence jobs is state and local law enforcement. There are few good estimates out there regarding the total number of jobs in law enforcement intelligence/crime analysis but my best guess is about 9000.

I get this number by looking at the total number of state and law enforcement agencies in the US (17,876) and dividing it, roughly, in half. I know that most of the agencies in the US have less than 50 officers and that agencies with less than 50 officers are unlikely to have anyone in intel. I also know, however, that some big cities (like New York) have large and very well developed intelligence units. So, I am ball-parking it here again but 9000 sounds about right.

If the numbers I came up with yesterday make any sense at all, then this should translate into about 500 entry level intelligence analyst/crime analyst positions per year opening up in law enforcement around the US.

Unlike the numbers for the big federal agencies, however, there are several reasons why this number could be low. For one reason, California alone estimated that it would need 160 analysts in 2005 for law enforcement and they also estimated, at the time, that the demand would continue to grow.

Another good reason for growth in this field is the increasing popularity of a concept, born in the UK, called "intelligence-led policing." To the extent that this catches on in the US (and it appears to have some traction here), it cannot help but to increase the number of intelligence billets in state and local law enforcement agencies.

Finally, there appears to be a growing interest in law enforcement and intelligence analysis at the career level. The International Association Of Crime Analysts boasts some 1500 members and, while the International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts doesn't advertise its numbers, insiders tell me that it probably has 2-3000 members. Both of these organizations are international but the largest body of members reside in the US.

Why Not Law Enforcement?

There are three reasons why these types of jobs often get overlooked or sidelined. In the first place they are not easy to find. If you want a job in local law enforcement, you have to be looking at state and local government job boards. Some agencies advertise broadly but most do not. Finding these jobs can be a pain.

The second reason that they may not seem appropriate is that some require an applicant to be "sworn" or a full-fledged member of the police force. While my impression is that this is changing, I am virtually certain that a number of these jobs require the analyst to be a cop first and an analyst second.

Finally, these jobs don't pay particularly well. The pay is not awful in most places and in some places it is not bad at all, but, by and large, it does not equal the pay (even when adjusted for cost of living) of an analyst in the Federal government or in business (which I will discuss next).

Next: Even Better News!

Part 2 -- The Intelligence Job Market From 20,000 Feet (How To Get A Job In Intelligence)

Part 1 -- Introduction

A high altitude survey of the intelligence job market yields some pretty interesting observations. The first is that the intelligence job market is finite. There are some pretty distinct boundaries and limits to the size of it and knowing these limits and boundaries helps you understand the potential for jobs in this market.

Let's start with the basics. How many intelligence jobs are there in the US and the world? How many people are actually employed in intelligence? We will start with the most famous of the job markets -- the US Intelligence Community.

Jobs In The US Intelligence Community (IC)

According to a late 2006 US News and World Report article, there are about 100,000 people working in the US intelligence community of which about 17,000 are analysts. This number was more or less confirmed in mid-2008. While it is unclear what exactly has been counted and what has not, these numbers provide a good starting place for some back of the envelope analysis useful to job seekers.

For example, how many analysts does the US IC need each year? Well, if you imagine a 25 year career for an analyst and all of them stay until retirement, then you are looking at about 700 a year (17,000/25 = 680).

It is virtually certain that only a few of these analysts stay all the way until retirement, however. More importantly, the number of analysts in each year group is not equal. In fact, one of the common comments about the intel community is that there are a number of "old" analysts soon to reach retirement and an even larger number of young analysts who have been hired since 9/11. This creates what has been called a "bathtub curve" (where the surge of new analysts is at one end of the time line and the large number of soon-to-be retirees is at the other end. In the middle is a smaller number of people who were hired between the end of the Cold War and 9/11).

All this makes it even more difficult to estimate how many entry-level jobs (including analyst jobs) there are in a given year. I would guess (and it is only a guess) that the "normal" number of analyst positions that need to be filled each year in the US government falls somewhere between half this idealized replacement rate to twice that rate or from about 350 to 1400.

These replacement rate numbers are particularly important as the halcyon days of the hiring boom in intelligence over the last 8 years are likely over. Budget strains are virtually certain to put a damper on significant levels of hiring beyond the replacement rate although the importance of the intelligence mission and the continued emergence of new threats (we are hearing that there will continue to be a growth market in cyber threat analysts into the next year and beyond, for example) will likely ensure that replacements get hired for those analysts and others who retire or quit.

The situation gets even worse, though, when you look at some of the agencies. The CIA is reporting a record number of applications this year -- 180,000 -- for the jobs they have open. The CIA has about 20,000 people in it and, if the overall percentage of analysts in the IC holds true for the CIA, then that means that there are about 3400 (17% of 20,000) analysts housed at Langley. Without any growth and if 5% of them are leaving or retiring this year then there are roughly (very roughly) 170 analyst positions available.

Furthermore, if 17% of the 180,000 applicants are trying to fill analyst positions then getting an analyst job at the CIA is about 18 times harder than getting accepted to Harvard as an undergrad (Harvard's acceptance rate in 2007 was 9.2%. 17% X 180,000 = 30,600. 170/30,600 = .6%).

All of these are just logical guesses but even if I am wrong by half (in other words, the number of jobs is twice what I estimate it to be) the total number of jobs and jobs available each year in the US Intelligence Community (and the number of analyst jobs in particular) is by no means enormous.

Including the number of analyst and other jobs available through contractors does not actually improve the picture that much. If recent numbers are accurate, then there are only about 37,000 contract employees in the US IC. Again, how many of these are analyst positions is unknown but if the 17% rule holds true here as well, it means an increase of a little more than 6000 analysts positions available through various contractors.

While not insubstantial, the number of entry-level positions through contractors is probably even more limited as we go into 2010 than through the government directly. In the first place, a significant number of intelligence professionals take jobs through contractors when they retire. In the second place, the days of large contracts for intelligence services seems to be coming to an end. I suspect that many of these contract jobs may get "converted" to government positions rather than go away (the government is going to still need the analysts regardless of who the analysts work for) over the next several years but the absolute number of positions that will need to be filled each year is probably in lower half of the 75-450 range.

In short, if you add up everything and round it all off to make it easy to wrap your head around it, there are likely about 1000 analyst jobs a year in the combined government and contractor worlds supporting the US IC. The number could be as low as around 400 or as high as about 2000 but given limited prospects for growth and some guess-timates for replacement rates, 1000 seems about right.

A couple of other things come out of this analysis. First, the competition for these jobs is fierce. I strongly suspect that the CIA gets the lion's share of attention when it comes to job applications but I would also guess that, in this economy, all 16 members of the intel community and the contractors that support them have seen an increase in the number of applications.

Likewise, not all of these 1000 or so positions are truly "entry-level". It is inevitable that some, perhaps many, of these positions are limited to people with significant levels of experience or who speak Farsi fluently or whatever.

Finally, I may well be off by a significant amount here. In addition to being terrible at math, the numbers I am basing this analysis on may be gross under- or over-estimates (it IS the intelligence community after all...). I am hoping that some of the readers of this blog will post a comment or two pointing us all to some major hiring binge that I have missed.

Even if I am wrong, however, I think the first thing that job seekers need to fully understand is that the US national security market is both limited and competitive.

Tomorrow: The Good News!

How To Get A Job In Intelligence (Introduction)

UPDATE:  I have updated all of the information in this series and published it in a 2015 Kindle e-book called "How To Get A Job In Intelligence".  The book contains not only updated information but also updated links to lots of jobs sites in national security, law enforcement, business and international positions.  Best of all, you do not need a Kindle to read it!  Amazon provides a free e-book reader for virtually any device.  

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