Example Career: Intelligence Analysts

Career Description

Gather, analyze, or evaluate information from a variety of sources, such as law enforcement databases, surveillance, intelligence networks or geographic information systems. Use intelligence data to anticipate and prevent organized crime activities, such as terrorism.

What Job Titles Intelligence Analysts Might Have

• Criminal Intelligence Analyst
• Criminal Research Specialist
• Intelligence Analyst
• Supervisor Intelligence Analyst

What Intelligence Analysts Do

• Validate known intelligence with data from other sources.
• Gather, analyze, correlate, or evaluate information from a variety of resources, such as law enforcement databases.
• Prepare comprehensive written reports, presentations, maps, or charts based on research, collection, and analysis of intelligence data.
• Study activities relating to narcotics, money laundering, gangs, auto theft rings, terrorism, or other national security threats.
• Collaborate with representatives from other government and intelligence organizations to share information or coordinate intelligence activities.
• Evaluate records of communications, such as telephone calls, to plot activity and determine the size and location of criminal groups and members.
• Gather intelligence information by field observation, confidential information sources, or public records.
• Link or chart suspects to criminal organizations or events to determine activities and interrelationships.
• Study the assets of criminal suspects to determine the flow of money from or to targeted groups.
• Design, use, or maintain databases and software applications, such as geographic information systems (GIS) mapping and artificial intelligence tools.
• Predict future gang, organized crime, or terrorist activity, using analyses of intelligence data.
• Establish criminal profiles to aid in connecting criminal organizations with their members.
• Gather and evaluate information, using tools such as aerial photographs, radar equipment, or sensitive radio equipment.
• Interview, interrogate, or interact with witnesses or crime suspects to collect human intelligence.
• Study communication code languages or foreign languages to translate intelligence.

What Intelligence Analysts Should Be Good At

• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Flexibility of Closure - The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.

What Intelligence Analysts Should Be Interested In

• Investigative - Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

What Intelligence Analysts Need to Learn

• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
• Public Safety and Security - Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.
• Communications and Media - Knowledge of media production, communication, and dissemination techniques and methods. This includes alternative ways to inform and entertain via written, oral, and visual media.
• Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
• Clerical - Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.
• Geography - Knowledge of principles and methods for describing the features of land, sea, and air masses, including their physical characteristics, locations, interrelationships, and distribution of plant, animal, and human life.
• Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
• Sociology and Anthropology - Knowledge of group behavior and dynamics, societal trends and influences, human migrations, ethnicity, cultures and their history and origins.
• Philosophy and Theology - Knowledge of different philosophical systems and religions. This includes their basic principles, values, ethics, ways of thinking, customs, practices, and their impact on human culture.