Intelligence Officer Ref. 1662

Stonewall Top Employer AwardSocial Mobility Foundation AwardDisability confident leaderThe Prince's Responsible BusinessThe Times Top 100

Intelligence
London
From £33,800 to £42,700 non negotiable

Intelligence is at the heart of what MI6 does. It is the secret information that the British government requires to keep the country safe and prosperous.

As an intelligence officer your focus will be gathering, delivering and utilising intelligence. These are fascinating and unique roles. Whether working with government departments to identify the intelligence requirements, overseeing a targeting effort to develop an operation to gather the intelligence, planning and managing that intelligence gathering operation, meeting the agents overseas with access to the intelligence, or reporting the intelligence back to senior government Ministers, you will be at the forefront of keeping this country safe and secure.

Your career will likely encompass all of these roles but you first go through the initial induction course which will allow us to assess where your skills best lie.  In your career you will also have the opportunity to work overseas, receiving language training where appropriate.

As your career develops, you will have ample opportunity to broaden your skills and to move into management and operational leadership positions.

You will receive a competitive salary (variable dependent on relevant experience and performance during recruitment) and also benefit from additional allowances, including child care support during training.

Contrary to some people’s pre-conceptions, there is not an MI6 ‘type’. The Service strives for diversity in the work place and is committed to the creation and maintenance of a climate in which all staff are treated fairly on the grounds of merit and ability.  We judge you solely by the value that you can add to our work.

The sort of qualities we are looking for are:
 
Exceptional interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence. The ability to understand, interact and connect with a diverse range of people is central to what we do and defines a good officer

•    An interest in foreign culture is essential. Aptitude with foreign languages and technology are both advantages
•    A sharp intellect with an ability to link disparate data in order to draw conclusions
•    Sound judgement and the capability to operate with high levels of autonomy
•    A drive to acquire knowledge and an ability to absorb new learning across a diverse range of subjects. Real evidence of achievement, ideally both in an academic setting and supplemented with work/life experience

The Service is also proud to be a member of the Stonewall Diversity Champions Programme in recognition of our commitment to equality of opportunity regardless of sexual orientation (Stonewall top 100 employers for 2018). We have achieved Level 3 (Leader) in the 'Disability Confident' scheme, offer a Guaranteed Interview Scheme, achieved silver banding in Business in the Community's Race and Gender Benchmarking exercise and are listed in Business in the Community's 2017 Best Race Employers index.

Thinking of applying?

Guidance for the Application process

The following is a rough guide to the recruitment process. Some applications may proceed more quickly, others more slowly – especially when application levels are high. Please do not make your application from outside the UK. If you are living overseas, please wait until you are back in the UK before launching an application.

Check the Nationality and Security Criteria before you begin the application process.  Unfortunately, no matter how good your application, we won’t be able to accept it unless you meet these criteria – so do check.

The Recruitment Process

Firstly, you will be asked to complete our pre-screening questions. If you meet these criteria we will then ask you to begin an application.  The first step will require you to create a login or log in to an existing account. Once you have successfully started an application, you will be required to complete an initial application form which contains some initial eligibility questions.

If you meet our initial eligibility criteria you will be sent an e-mail asking you to take two online tests, which form part of the formal assessment process. Please complete both tests within the next 48 hours. If you do not complete the test within this timeframe, we will assume that you no longer wish to proceed with your application.

Verbal Reasoning Test

This test is designed to assess the key skill of reasoning with verbal information, which is essential for the role of the Intelligence Officer in MI6.  We encourage you to complete some practice questions.  The practice questions are untimed, but please note that in the real test you will have 25 minutes to answer the 36 questions.  The practice questions are not a compulsory part of the assessment and will not affect the outcome of your application. If you wish to complete the practice questions for the verbal reasoning test please click on the link below and you will be redirected:

http:/www.cubiksonline.com/FPD/PracticeAssessment/GenericVerbalInstructions.aspx

Situational Judgement Test

During the situational judgement test you will be presented with a set of hypothetical scenarios which have designed using situations relevant to our values and key behaviours needed to perform the Intelligence Officer role.  The situational judgement test is set in the context of you taking on the role of an Intelligence Officer; however, you will not need any knowledge of the policies or procedures relating to MI6 in order to answer the questions in this test.  You will just need to use your own judgement to rate the most and least effective options. This situational judgement test will present you with 22 different situations that you might have to deal with an Intelligence Officer. Though it is not timed, it should take you approximately 45 minutes to complete the test, but please be aware your session will time out automatically after 90 minutes.

If you are successful at this stage, we will invite you to complete and submit our full application form.

Full Application form

The application form asks for details of your:

•    Academic record
•    Employment and life experience
•    International Travel, and
•    Language and IT skills

This information is vital for us to be able to evaluate your application and we would ask you ensure the details are as accurate as possible.  This can be time consuming to provide in the format we ask for.  However, these details are essential at this stage.

Some of the questions are competency based which allow you to demonstrate the attributes and aptitudes that we consider essential to this role; your answers to these questions will determine whether we think you would be suitable for this unique role. Each of these answers has a word limit.

We suggest that it is easier to draft responses in your computer’s word processing programme and then cut and paste into the application form itself.  Please be aware that there is an automatic time out to this section so you might lose information if you do not save it for a long period.

You should only refer to our organisation as ‘the organisation’ in any of your answers.

When you have completed all the sections of the application form, please finish the process by using the ‘Submit’ button.  We have no access to your form until you do so. We ask candidates to submit within 7 days of starting their application form (or by the closing date) as this will enable us to process it as quickly as possible.

Assessment day

If your application is successful you will be invited to attend an assessment centre, in London, designed to assess whether you have the core skills and competencies essential for the role. Candidates will take part in a group exercise and a Computer Analysis Test. Candidates who complete these successfully, will go on to be interviewed. The interview will allow you to demonstrate the attributes and aptitudes that we consider essential to this role. There will be some competency-based questions: if you are unfamiliar with competencies, you might find it helpful to prepare by familiarising yourself with the Civil Service competency framework guidance www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-competency-framework

Two day assessment centre

Candidates who are successful at the half day assessment centre will then be invited to attend a two-day assessment centre, in London, which is the final stage of our recruitment process.  Successful candidates will receive a conditional job offer, dependent on passing security vetting.

Please note that we do not provide feedback should you not succeed at any stage of the recruitment process.

Eligibility Criteria

You should read the Apply Now section for further information on the eligibility criteria and recruitment process for this role, and satisfy yourself that you meet the criteria outlined:

Please note again, you should only launch your application from within the UK. Please do not make your application from outside the UK. If you are living overseas, please wait until you are back in the UK before launching an application. Applying from outside the UK will impact on our ability to progress your application.

Applicants must be British nationals, and are required to have a minimum of a 2:2 degree or higher. Undergraduates must be in the last 6 months of their course before applying.

You should only discuss your application with your partner or a close family member, as long as they are British. They should also be made aware of the need for discretion.

Guaranteed Interview Scheme

As part of our commitment to being a ‘Disability Confident Leader’ we offer an interview to all candidates with a disability who meet our minimum criteria for the role that they are applying for. This is known as the Guaranteed Interview Scheme (GIS).

To secure an interview for this vacancy, the minimum criteria (in order of application
process) are:

Eligibility Questions
You will be asked a series of questions relating to this vacancy. If you meet the criteria here you will be directed to the full application form.

Online Tests
You will be required to reach the pass mark set for the situational judgement and verbal reasoning test.

On successful completion of these tests, and a successful application form sift, you will be invited to the half day assessment centre. As detailed above, this includes an interview. This is our Guaranteed Interview.

During all stages of the application process there will be opportunity to request any reasonable adjustments required to allow candidates to complete the assessments.

Thank you again for your interest in this role. Please do not discuss your answers with anyone else or leave information up on screens where you may be overlooked.



This Program / Vacancy is closed to applications.