Intelligence Officer Ref. 1123

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Intelligence
London

***THIS VACANCY IS NOW CLOSED. ANY APPLICATIONS MADE AFTER 31st JULY WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED***

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, 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 will not be assigned to any one until you have been 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 opportunities to broaden your skills and look to move into management and operational leadership positions.

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

The qualities we are looking for

The ideal candidate is probably not the obvious candidate. The sort of qualities we are looking for are:

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



Thinking of applying

Applicants must be British nationals, aged 21 or older and are required to have a minimum of a 2:2 degree or higher.

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.

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 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.
 
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.  We strongly recommend that candidates make their applications via the website from within the UK. Those living overseas are advised to wait until they visit the UK before launching an application.

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

Advice for completing the 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 that you ensure that 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.  

In addition to this factual information, we ask you to answer a series of further questions. Some are competency-based which allow you to demonstrate the attributes and aptitudes that we consider essential to this role; we are less interested in a list of achievements than in understanding how you work and arrive at results. Other questions are more analytical in nature. Your answers to these questions are key to 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 MS Word (or equivalents) 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 may 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.

The Recruitment Process

Firstly, you will be asked to complete our pre-screening questions. If you do 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 an online situational judgement test, which forms part of the formal assessment process. On receipt of this invitation e-mail, you will be asked to complete the test 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.

Situational Judgement Test

During the situational judgement test you will be presented with a set of hypothetical scenarios which have been 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 effectiveness of each option in response to the situation presented and pick the most and least effective options. This situational judgement test will present you with 22 different situations that you might have to deal with as an Intelligence Officer. It should take you approximately 45 minutes to complete the test but please be aware your session will time out automatically after 1 hour.

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

If your application is successful at this stage you will be invited to attend a testing session which will take place in London and is designed to test whether you have some of the core skills and competencies essential for the role.

Candidates who are successful at the testing session, will then be invited to attend an interview.

The final stage of our recruitment process is a two day assessment centre.

Thank you again for your interest in this role.  We must remind you that confidentiality is central to our work.  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.