Careers Options in Business, Government and Defense Intelligence
Alain Paul Martin
Since publishing my book on intelligence and counterintelligence, many students and young professionals have asked about career-choice questions similar to Linda's. Both the questions and the response are provided below.
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Dear Mr. Martin,
Being a history student and having touched briefly on the use of intelligence
in the Cold War, the recent coverage in the news about the value and interpretation
of intelligence found in Iraq has been so interesting and I hanker after a good book
to read about this specifically. But one at a time!
I know you write on areas that stretch far wider than just business intelligence
specifically however if you do have a few minutes I wonder if you might
be so kind as to write what sort of work experience one would be expected
to have to enter this field and how I might go about gaining this.
Thank you
Linda
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Hello Linda,
Thank you for your note.
With respect to your career aspirations, you are already on the right track
by choosing history in your undergraduate program, which can anchor studies in diplomacy, trade or even intelligence history. Your values, interests and abilities, at graduation time,
will be critical to set a corridor of navigation within which you can explore career options during your graduate studies. You can assess your interests
and goals by learning more about intelligence
and its professions, the sooner the better.
Intelligence is primarily a context-driven teamwork, blending complementary competencies and field experiences. Expertise from a variety of disciplines is nearly always critical in fact finding, empirical and subjective validities, analysis and interpretation. I have observed a single complex case requiring intense collaboration between professionals in languages, IT, finance, intellectual-property law, psychology, chemical engineering and scenario writing applying Monte-Carlo simulation. In virtually all cases, the ability to
validate data and claims, regardless
of the originator, including the so-called authoritative sources, is a precious asset for anyone working in the profession.
In the business world, the Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP)
is a leading force. I would recommend that you participate in competitive-intelligence (CI) seminars or conferences organized by the SCIP in your area, have a dialogue with practitioners and read the books of your choice that are listed on SCIP publication list. Contact faculty members who teach competitive intelligence in leading universities and CI professionals, on LinkedIn, with whom you have some affinities (e.g. attending the same college, connected to your friends). I also compiled a reference list of free videos and publications on the topic.
In national, state and local governments, intelligence is a pre-requisite in policy formulation, planning and monitoring commercial, environmental, health and national-security issues, ranging from law enforcement, insider trading and international trade violations to pandemic risk readiness and terrorism. It includes several functional tracks from the age-old human intelligence (HUMINT) to signal intelligence (SIGINT) dealing with the encryption and decoding of digital messages, Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT) and Communications Intelligence (COMINT). Within each track, you can work in data collection, analysis,
interpretation and/or risk assessment and mitigation.
The U.S. Air War
College portal titled
Gateway to Intelligence is an excellent reference for anyone interested
to learn about intelligence in the defense sector.
With time permitting, I would gladly discuss further questions that I feel prepared to adress.
Regards,
Alain Paul Martin
Author of
Harnessing the Power of Intelligence, Counterintelligence & Surprise Events
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