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Central-Intelligence-Agency

Overall, CIA is a great place to work. There are many opportunities to  excel, and to use the talents that you bring to the job. There is also the advantage of knowing that you are serving and helping your country every day.

A typical day at work depends on the nature of your job. I was an office worker, and my job was the same as it would be at any large company. However, I won't mention what my work was about.

I will say that I learned a lot, being privileged to travel to several places. In a few of them, my family was allowed to come and visit. This enhanced my daughter's education a great deal, and she and my husband got to sight-see and have quality time together while I was at work.

Workplace culture was mostly good, but does depend upon the nature of one's departmental management.

The hardest part of the job was learning secretarial duties, as I had not previously been one. However, since I don't have any college, it was the job that I had to come into. I was able to catch on quickly, and because of the wonderful people I was assisting, I enjoyed that first assignment a lot. After completing my first year, I was able to move to a higher position. However, I also worked in other secretarial jobs through the years, depending upon my goals at the time.

The most enjoyable part of the job was being able to travel, and to move periodically to different jobs and learn types of work.

A typical workday for a finance and operations support officer is a standard 8-5 work schedule.  This all depends on the particular job, operation and location as this could obviously increase from time to time.  It is all dependent on the particular set of goals at the time.

You learn to work with a variety of personnel during the course of your career.  From staffers to briefings to senior management.

Management, at least in the area of finance and support, is at times lacking.  Like any office, I have had great managers and at others absolutely horrible.

The hardest part of the job is coming to grips that regulations basically outweigh common sense at times.  Hey, it's the government.  

The most enjoyable part of the job were the opportunities that the Agency offers and the sense of duty it can provide. It has in some offices, flexible schedules which are family friendly.  You will also have the opportunity to travel abroad if that is one's goal.

I worked on several different worldwide targets and regions in offices that used military, economic, and financial analyses. As team leader during and after Desert Storm, I worked closely with military intelligence analysis offices and supported our troops on the ground.  I also worked on countries during times of unrest and civil war, writing reports to update officials on quickly escalating events.

I worked closely with my managers to provide them with reporting, coordination efforts with the military and different Intelligence Community offices, and feedback from our team's work. Some offices I worked in needed quick turnaround reporting, and others required longer and more in-depth research and analyses. I worked with several different teams and offices to provide research and reports to fit those requirements. 

I enjoyed working with people from my offices, the military, and from other Intelligence Community agencies.  I always considered our work to be a team effort for our country.



I served as an Executive Assistant at the Agency for 23 years,  I had no typical day!  I woke up every morning wondering what new and exciting thing I was going to learn that day, and I was rarely disappointed,   

I was fortunate to have excellent managers who truly appreciated and rewarded exceptional performance, both monetarily and with plum assignments,  I served at eight different Embassies and Consulates all over the world.  My spouse was an agency employee as well (a finance officer) and management made every effort to see that we had tandem assignments.

Our co-workers were dedicated public servants who were there for the same reason we were - to serve our country,  There were the usual petty complaints but they were infrequent.

The hardest part of my job was also the most enjoyable:  being away from my extended family for long periods of time, but living overseas and exposing my children to an international life was an experience I wouldn't trade for anything!

The CIA is a great, exciting place to work.  You acquire unique skills and are involved in issues that matter to the United States and its government.  There are many talented people working there with a range of abilities from foreign languages to military skills.  The training is intensive, but well-organized, and it prepares you for most of the real-world situations you encounter.  Promotions and/or pay raises come fairly regularly and performance is recognized with various types of rewards, some monetary.  The opportunities for travel are great, and I spent at least seven of my 13+ years with the CIA overseas.  I also had a chance to manage several programs and intelligence operations units. Some of the most challenging or difficult experiences are generated by world events, but the CIA's training, resources, and emphasis on teamwork and interagency cooperation help you to meet those challenges.

Current employee, have seen a lot of dirty things.  Terrible corruption going on in the senior ranks--either your on board or kiss your career good bye.  This tribal mentality is often joked about among the working ranks and compared to being voted off the island in the TV series Survivor.  Makes it very toxic and causes good people to put their ethics aside and look the other way in order to keep their careers.  I joined like most as a patriotic American defending my country against terrorists or hostile adversarial countries.   The management cares little about the mission and are solely focus on maintaining their positions/careers or filing their pockets.  They frequently hold up the sacrifices of its hard working and patriotic staff as an example of their commitment to country --don't believe it.  Go get a good job with Apple, Google, SpaceX, or some good tech firm.

A typical day in the office consisted of typing documents that were classified and handled according to the classification code that was given to it.  When the documents were completed, it was given to the appropriate supervisor for review.  The position also required that all files were locked at all times except when it was necessary to insert additional information in them.  Management was easy to work with and like most organizations, they rated your performance.  I was fortunate to have a good relationship with all of my co-workers.  The hardest part of my job was remembering to always destroy the burn bags when there was a fire drill.  If someone forgot to do this, they were reminded that this action was not acceptable.  Having a good working relationship with my co-workers (of all ages and backgrounds) was an enjoyable part of my job.

The agency is one of the most renowned organizations in the world; as such, I felt proud as a staff employee each time I walked through those halls.  However, the culture could be very political and lacked diversity in many areas.  While one may have fulfilled all of their requirements to reach a certain level; there still remained a hint of "not belonging", given the lack of diversity.
The agency offers excellent training, travel, and a plethora of opportunity for advancement as long as you apply yourself.  However, be careful whom you trust in terms of management and do not make any mistakes, because if you don't fall within a certain click... it may be your last.  The old adage certainly applies with this agency; "Its not what you know, but who you know".

At the Agency, you have the opportunity to make a real difference--it's hard to write a comprehensive review though b/c it's so varied, both good and bad. 

You might find yourself attending yet another meeting about minor administrative details, dealing with a nightmare colleague who will never get fired, trying for hours to get a straight answer to a simple question, puzzling through yet another reorg, trying to figure out which of your seven supervisors to talk to about a problem, or meeting a great friend or future spouse. 

You can have a great experience  if you're willing to wade through seemingly endless administrative requirements and put in the time to understand a truly byzantine organization that bears a lot of similarity to military hierarchies. 

The CIA offers unique experience, and predominantly train on the job for these positions, once professionals exceed the final cut for education, a battery of tests, and clearances.  Individuals are encouraged to think for themselves within the framework of regulations, and often travel alone worldwide to assist case officers abroad with technical help.

Great equal opportunities for all sexes, races, and health handicaps (I even saw a blind man pushing the postal cart through the halls). 

One has to get used to paranoid behavior when working in this environment.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Packer 20 salaries reported	$40.50 per hour
Operations officer 6 salaries reported	$101,165 per year
Nurse practitioner 8 salaries reported	$119,315 per year
Collection agent 3 salaries reported	$91,420 per year
Data engineer 3 salaries reported	$116,054 per year

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