CIA/NRO interview process ...

[WhiteNoise]

i have an interview scheduled with a CIA recruiter "soon" i'm curious about the general process.

as related to this site, at what stage in the process will the Poly-test be brought up ?
what will the stipulations be ?
what kind of questions/topics ?

anyway, curious about people's experiences.

-dan

[NoMoreSecrets]

Dear WhiteNoise:

According to a recent submission on the personal statements page of this website the polygraph interrogation is part of pre-employment selection.

From sources I can confirm the pre-employment selection process entails:
-recruiter interview
-standard written test
-preliminary multiple-day selection that includes a familiarization briefing, interviews, standard written psych tests, polygraph, preliminary medical exam and shrink interview.

Applicants who pass this series of evaluations are invited back for in-depth medical tests, detailed psych tests and career-specific interviews.

After this, a tentative offer is extended to attend training. Training is approximately 52 weeks with an additional extention to attend language training at Georgetown's Foreign Language Institute (or whatever it's called). Before you get an overseas assignment you'll be in the D.C. area for about 2 years.

(This information is culled from public sources.)

Regarding the polygraph, understand this thoroughly, and you should be fine:
-it is highly flawed.
-it can detect nothing but your physiological responses, which is meaningless.
-the only information the examiner/interrogator is going to get from you is what you submit. So give them NOTHING.
-remember: they can't tell whether you're lying or not. They make uneducated guesses and intimidate.

Blow it off, be cool, be relaxed, give them nothing, and you pass your polygraph with flying colors.

Hope this addressed your question.

[Meow]

I was thinking about applying for a position with the CIA, and I would like to know how far back they check an applicant for security clearance.  Is it 7yrs., 10 yrs. etc.?

Thank you!

[Skeptic]

I was thinking about applying for a position with the CIA, and I would like to know how far back they check an applicant for security clearance.  Is it 7yrs., 10 yrs. etc.?

Thank you!

The standard SF86 form asks for 7 years of data for most questions.  AFAIK, NSA goes further and asks for 10 years.  I would imagine the CIA is similar to the NSA in this respect.

Skeptic

[Chiao]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me about the credit check process for the FBI, CIA, etc.

Do they see the entire credit report with all the C.C. balances, payment history and the like? Or they just get info. about late payments , derogatory info, and/or positive info, or credit score?



Thanks

[False +]

Chiao,

The credit-related information the US Government obtains is in the form of a credit report from any of the credit reporting bureaus (I believe there are only 3 major such bureaus). This information can includes which banks you've had loans with, which credit cards you've used, whether you've had >30 days overdue payments, and most likely current balances on credit cards and/or loans. The investigators will get the whole enchilada....

False+

[Mark Mallah]

Anyone interested in the CIA MUST read this article.  Here is the link and an excerpt of general interest to readers of this site:

http://www.mafhoum.com/press2/cia76.htm


Foreign affairs. Prospective employees are required to list the names and addresses of every foreign person with whom they have a close or continuing relationship. Someone who speaks Arabic with native fluency almost certainly has friends and relatives in the Middle East. If he has too many of either, it is unlikely that he will receive a security clearance. He'll be required to return for polygraph after polygraph, during which time he will be abused and insulted. His application will sit for years; he will be given no information about its status, and will be treated dismissively when he calls for information. After the seventh polygraph and the second year of waiting for a clearance, he will give up. The clever candidate with fluent Arabic and a degree from Harvard will probably take a job with Shell, where he'll be paid six times what he would be paid by the CIA, and treated with at least that much more respect.

In one case, security investigators became exercised because an employee was discovered to have visited the embassies of several Middle Eastern countries years prior to his entry on duty – not surprisingly, since he had worked for six years as an oil industry executive. Rather than joyously celebrating their good fortune in finding this espionage gem, they fired him. As a consequence, the case officer cadre tends to be full of Mormons and big, blond, beefy Pentecostals from the South, men as out of place in the bazaars as Chandler's tarantula on angel food.

[beech trees]

Along the same lines, Matt Drudge is reporting that Bill Gertz's latest book Breakdown is raising great consternation within the intelligence community.

Fair use quote:

Gertz has obtained highly classified documents and dispatches from within the CIA, the FBI and other national security agencies which detail a stunning collapse of intelligence on terrorists... The agency pleaded with the publisher not to reprint the leaked documents -- but the context of those docs will remain in the book, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned... For his part, Gertz hopes his outline of dramatic intelligence failures [which cross several administrations] serves as a wake up call to citizens who watched helplessly as their nation was attacked by terrorists last year. Bureaucrats with politically correct policies have left the United States dangerously exposed, warns Gertz, chapter after chapter after chapter.

[PROAc]

I read the Washington Times since the 1980s/1990s. Bill Gertz wrote a lot about China and Russia. The Clinton/Gore people were pro-Russia and pro-Chinese. Bill Gertz sometimes quote from top secret documents from DIA, NGIC, NAIC, etc. I think he rarely wrote about U.S. military secrets. Now most of the spies caught inthe last 20 years have documents on and about U.S. secrets, rarely about foreign secrets. Why are polygraphers reactive? Why are the security people not proactive? Anyone who expose security weakness will be shunned and ostracized.

<<Along the same lines, Matt Drudge is reporting that Bill gertz's latest book Breakdown is raising great consternation within the intelligence community.>>

[dinamo]

Hello. I am going to Washington soon for the second interview and a poly (that's for the CIA). Can anybody tell me specific questions they are going to ask on the poly? And second question, how long do you have to wait after visiting Washington to get a conditional offer?

[Fair Chance]

The CIA is one of the organizations which I believe makes you sign a statement that all information regarding the interview process is confidential.  Not many people seem to want to talk about it.  Please download the The Lie Behind the Detector from this site.  It seems to have the most information about possible questions specifically in the CIA (the book warns that "anything goes" as far as the questions).  I do not envy you, I heard that they really push you psychologically.  Please remember, the CIA is an organization that expects you to place their needs ahead of your own.  If they sense any hesitency on your part to commit totally to their goals, you are "outta there."

In any case, hold your head high and thanks for being ready to put yourself in harm's way for the rest of us in America!

[ez]

dinamo,

You posted:
 [Hello. I am going to Washington soon for the second interview and a poly (that's for the CIA). Can anybody tell me specific questions they are going to ask on the poly? And second question, how long do you have to wait after visiting Washington to get a conditional offer?]

  I have previously worked with both Federal agencies the CIA and FBI; speaking strictly from my own personal experience, the CIA usually will not polygraph you until they have made a conditional job offer. This practice is common with the CIA and FBI.

  However, they could have changed their "conditional job offer practices" since I worked for them.

  For clarification purposes; the CIA wants to polygraph you, and there has been "no" previous conditional job offer... is this correct.? If so, your process is being handled differently than was mine... you will do fine, don't worry.

PS, download and read "TLBTLD" if you have not already done so, its very good advise to prevent against the risk of a potential false positive result.

Good luck.
Ez

[truelies]

Foreign affairs. Prospective employees are required to list the names and addresses of every foreign person with whom they have a close or continuing relationship. Someone who speaks Arabic with native fluency almost certainly has friends and relatives in the Middle East. If he has too many of either, it is unlikely that he will receive a security clearance. He'll be required to return for polygraph after polygraph, during which time he will be abused and insulted. His application will sit for years; he will be given no information about its status, and will be treated dismissively when he calls for information. After the seventh polygraph and the second year of waiting for a clearance, he will give up. The clever candidate with fluent Arabic and a degree from Harvard will probably take a job with Shell, where he'll be paid six times what he would be paid by the CIA, and treated with at least that much more respect.

In one case, security investigators became exercised because an employee was discovered to have visited the embassies of several Middle Eastern countries years prior to his entry on duty – not surprisingly, since he had worked for six years as an oil industry executive. Rather than joyously celebrating their good fortune in finding this espionage gem, they fired him. As a consequence, the case officer cadre tends to be full of Mormons and big, blond, beefy Pentecostals from the South, men as out of place in the bazaars as Chandler's tarantula on angel food.


[/quote]

Yes, I believe this report to be mostly accurate .  My profile fits the description above (though I must say I'm not at Ivy League graduate), and I was initially denied an Agency clearance for similar reasons.  I speak, read and write a ME language (not Arabic) and was repeatedly humiliated and screamed at during my poly.
 
  In fact, as the article mentions, I remember there being three mormons from rather provincial areas just in the small group alone that I was placed in during the med/poly office visit.  With regards to foreign languages, the hiring manager that offered me the COE specifically remarked that knowing a foreign language is really not necessary (this was for a Middle Eastern position mind you)  

 Also, I can honestly say that at no time while at Agency HQ did I see an ethnic minority  in a professional/analytical postion.  The only place I saw African Americans, Hispanics (absolutely no Middle Easterners anywhere) were in clerical, support, janitorial positions. I guess this is how Agency spokesman Hartlow justifies that the Agency is not racist in its hiring practices.

  I think if most decent Americans knew the truth, the Agency would indeed be forced to restructure.  I highly doubt that Intel Agencies of other developed countries are so incompetent and poorly run.

[Fair Chance]

Dear True Lies,

The more I read this Website, the more concerned I am about are we getting the best and brightest people into the Amercan Government.  America is diversified and our government must reflect this. I am saddened that any agency concerned with other cultures does not think that speaking the language is important!  Learning and understanding a language involves the culture and history of the language in most studies.  The mindset of a nation cannot be understood by anyone who does not understand its language.  The Brookings Institute has alluded that the government is not "attracting top notch motivated Amercians with patriotic duty."  Your story shows that the talent is available, the government is just not smart enough to appreciate the talent.  As a taxpayer, I am mad that you were not hired.  Things will change or history will repeat itself and no one person in America wants that to happen right now (except the hiring authority that was shortsighted in your case).

[truelies]

Dear True Lies,

The more I read this Website, the more concerned I am about are we getting the best and brightest people into the Amercan Government.  America is diversified and our government must reflect this. I am saddened that any agency concerned with other cultures does not think that speaking the language is important!  Learning and understanding a language involves the culture and history of the language in most studies.  The mindset of a nation cannot be understood by anyone who does not understand its language.  The Brookings Institute has alluded that the government is not "attracting top notch motivated Amercians with patriotic duty."  Your story shows that the talent is available, the government is just not smart enough to appreciate the talent.  As a taxpayer, I am mad that you were not hired.  Things will change or history will repeat itself and no one person in America wants that to happen right now (except the hiring authority that was shortsighted in your case).

 --I'm glad to hear that you are mad, unfortunately I don't believe most Americans are yet on this wavelength. I also don't think that Polygraph issues and federal agency (specifically -human resources) deficiencies are something most Americans can personally relate to, and therefore feel strongly about.  I would hope that you would express these very same opinions to your Congressman/Sentaor (as I did)... Remember, as informative as this website is, things will only change once the public puts pressure on their elected representatives.

BTW - For the record, and to all those who will read my last post, I intrinsically have nothing against Mormons or people from the South...Of course, I also realize that there are numerous loyal and competent Americans that  identify with one, or both of these religious and/or demographic groups.