The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. Responding to the heightened need to fight terrorists and other criminals, the Bureau will increase its hiring in 2004, bringing in some 1,200 new agents and 2,100 professional support people.
Filling the positions is a challenge because they require more than technical expertise, notes Gwendolyn Hubbard, chief of the personnel resources unit, the FBI's national recruitment office. All candidates must be U.S. citizens and pass very strict drug and polygraph tests and a full background check. Special agent applicants must be between the ages of twenty-three and thirty-six. There are no age restrictions for professional support applicants.
Obviously, an agent would have to be in excellent physical condition, and mandatory retirement age for agents is fifty-seven.
The opening of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) in 2003 got a lot of favorable press coverage and generated a lot of interest among potential applicants. A recent call for intelligence analysts drew 6,000 responses, Hubbard notes.
The TTIC is a centralized "war room." Analysts from every major intelligence agency work together. They sift a continuous stream of threat-related information, pulling together data that can be converted into alerts and action.
A posting to the TTIC, Hubbard says, "is a prestigious position."
FBI agents need a bachelors degree and at least three years of professional experience. Fluency in a foreign language is a plus.
Analysts with all kinds of IT skills are needed for professional support. "Our emphasis on criminal intelligence and the priority of fighting terrorism makes IT a critical skill area for us," Hubbard says.
Experience in research, especially projects that demonstrate creativity in searching databases, is a plus. "They need a high level of what we call 'intelligence curiosity,'" Hubbard says. "They have to be able to classify and dig for information that might contribute to the war on terrorism."
Since October 1, 2003 the Bureau has received more than 11,000 applications for agents and support personnel. Of them, some 9,000 had the required technical skills; 36 percent of those were minorities.
The Bureau tested 5,900 people, 34 percent of them minorities, and interviewed 2,490, 27 percent of them minorities. Through June 2004, 852 agents had been hired, 191 of them minorities.
The total FBI workforce numbers almost 12,000 agents, 17 percent minority and 18 percent women; and more than 16,000 professional support staff, 30 percent minority and 66 percent women.
"We measure our success against the available civilian workforce," Hubbard says. The FBI is connecting with minority professional societies and minority-serving colleges such as Morgan State University (Baltimore, MD), and is actively seeking applicants in major urban areas.
In a recent pilot program, the FBI helped create the Faith-Based Community Council on Law Enforcement and Intelligence, a coalition that's reaching out to the senior pastors of some of the largest Baltimore-area African American churches. The idea is to make the pastors and their congregations aware of job opportunities in the intelligence community. The organization is planning a big career fair. "We are working hard to find diverse applicants," says Hubbard.
If new hires would like mentors, they'll be matched with more senior people. But many agents find their own informal connections during training at the FBI Academy.
The Bureau's new internship program welcomed ninety interns in the summer of 2004, 66 percent of them minorities, and the program will expand next year.
"We're hiring, and we really need to get the word out," Hubbard says.
D/C
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
www.fbi.gov
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Headquarters: |
Washington, DC |
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Employees: |
approx 28,000 |
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Mission: |
Protecting the U.S. from criminal activity, including terrorist attacks, foreign intelligence gathering and espionage |
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