For those of you that may be interested in going this route, here's a brief synopsis of the road that you would take.

Apply via internet or mail via a few forms that you must fill out. One of those forms includes whether or not you have used drugs in the past (and you could not have used drugs within the last 3 years of submitting your application.

If you have what the FBI is looking for through your degree and work experience, you will be given a date to take your Phase 1 test. This encompasses multiple choice math and ethical questions. Expect about 3-4 hours for phase 1 testing.

If you pass Phase 1 (you will receive a pass or fail notification in about 10 days of completing Phase 1 testing) and the FBI has a need to hire at that time, then you will be notified via mail of when and where to take Phase 2 testing.

Phase 2 encompasses an oral interview with 3 agents and a written evaluation to determine your ability to read facts and then present them in a logical manner.

Within 10 days of completing Phase 2 testing you will receive a conditional job offer for the FBI, assuming you passed phase 2 testing. If the FBI is still hiring, then you will receive a phone call to come take a physical readiness test and a polygraph shortly after you receive that conditional job offer.

Once the polygraph and PRT are passed, you will receive a phone call to take a urinalysis screening and have a medical screening for suitability to the high demands of the job.

Once this is complete and you passed everything, you will receive a phone call or letter for an appointment date to Quantico.

I'll stress this. There were several hundred people taking phase 1 testing, now there's approx 10 of us left after the poly and run-test. Not the best of odds, but do-able. If you make it as far as the poly, just be honest with the polygrapher during the pre-screening and honest on the test and you'll be fine. Remember, your character and ethics are under scrutiny throughout the entire process. 

If you choose to enter this long road, I bid you good luck.

I may be wrong, but even if one has some type of security clearance in the military, they still have to go through the background process in regards to obtaining a security clearance for civilian employment with the federal government.

fifazip wrote on Mar 11^th, 2002 at 3:26am:


No forgot to mention it. The background investigation starts after you sign a bunch of consent forms, take a urinalysis and get fingerprinted. This investigation is done regardless if you have a prior security clearance or not.

Rio - the fitness test is nothing more than a 2 mile run.

fifazip,

I'd like to offer a suggestion as you research polygraphy and ponder whether Duc748 is correct in his belief that his polygrapher was completely truthful with him:

1) Read Chapters 3 & 4 of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.

2) Go back to the message thread Honesty is better than deception, which Duc748 started.

3) In reply #2 to that thread, Duc748 indicates that his polygrapher asked him whether he cheated in school:

Quote:


Duc748 seems to think that the question about cheating in school was a relevant question, and not a probable-lie "control" question. Given what you've learned about CQT polygraphy in Chapter 3 of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector, is Duc748 correct in believing this?

4) In reply #11, Duc748 wrote:

Quote:


Bearing in mind what you've learned about CQT polygraphy in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector, was Duc748 correct in supposing that questions such as, "Are you ___ years old?" are "known truth control" questions? Could it be that Duc748 failed to recognize these questions as the unscored irrelevant questions that they are and naively believed his polygrapher's false explanation that the purpose of these questions is to "show what his responses look like when he's telling the truth?"

fifazip,

Duc748 wrote:

Quote:


Are the questions I raised above frivolous and unworthy of answers? If you agree with me that they are not frivolous, then why do you suppose Duc748 is unwilling to address them?

Duc748,

Fifazip is trying to figure out whether your polygrapher "was completely honest with you about this whole process." Far from being frivolous, the questions that I raised will help thinking readers to draw a rational conclusion regarding this point.

Your unwillingness to address these questions and your know-nothing suggestion to "ignore what you read here on this site" may tell readers something about your own thought process, but it tells them nothing about "Control" Question "Test" polygraphy (used by the FBI in pre-employment screening) and its inherent trickery.

Quote:


The polygrapher made mention of the fact that there are sites (like this one) out on the web, and that I may have read up on polygrapher, but not to use the countermeasures; Because if you are suspected of using them, you are automatically DQ'd. I had nothing to hide, so didn't bother. I passed. That was as far as the discussion went. I see no reason to say that you have or have not read this stuff on the internet.

What you have to remember about this site, is that these guys are personally biased against polygraphy. They will give you the gloom and doom speech and make you "feel" that the only way to pass the polygraph is to "use countermeasures". Call it what they will, they're still trying to cheat the system. I say ignore them and do what you know is right. 

Quote:


Outside, on a 1/4 mile track. They said to run on a track from now on to get used to it, since that's what you run on at Quantico.

I failed my FBI polygraph exam two days ago. I am not resentful because I went in with my eyes open well aware of the failings of the polygraph but, I am extremely crestfallen and disappointed  because this is all I have ever wanted  to do and now .....
I want to say that my previous experience with polygraphs ( I built one as a child) and what I read here gave me the misguided confidence in my ability to pass without employing any countermeasures, that was a mistake. I unlike the person that began this thread was able to recognize the relevant questions and the control questions but as I stated earlier I chose not to strengthen my responses.  I guess I should have prefaced this by saying I have never  done an illegal drug nor have I facilitated the sale or transport of drugs. Also, I am not nor have I ever been a member of a group working toward the overthrow of my country. These were the categories tested. 
As expected I was boxed in on the control questions and in my opinion I still felt no stress in answering the questions put to me. The examiner albeit friendly, did attempt to deceive me about the importance of the control questions and at the end he would not tell me whether I passed but he did lead me to believe that I had with the statement
"Hopefully we will be able to work together in the future." 
As I said before I am not bitter about my experience because throughout the process I was treated with respect and courtesy and I can't fault the polygrapher for doing his job.
Duc748, no offense, seems to lack objectivity or rather wears the proverbial rose-covered glasses. That was not an attempt to cast an aspersion but, he strikes me as the type of individual who would say that if the polygraph found me to be deceptive in all of those categories (which for anyone who knows me finds this laughable) then there must be something to it.
P.S. In regard to the physical fittness test my recruiter told me it was only a mile and a half with a time requirement  between eleven minutes and thirty seconds and twelve minutes and forty seconds, anything over eleven thirty would require that you repeat the run once more before your class date to make sure you were still within acceptable parameters. I have verified this with my cousin who is an agent supervisor. I was scheduled to take it on friday, perhaps the requirements changed. Now at Quantico it is a two mile course.