How to Become an Intelligence Analyst Today (…even if you’ve got no experience)

Ok, so you’re interested in a career in Intelligence –  You’re intrigued by the concept of learning secrets, Perhaps you want to contribute to something bigger. Maybe you enjoy solving puzzles and working with different pieces of information…? But you don’t know where to start? Well you can’t exactly just walk into a three letter agency, and there’s a lot of competition for internship positions.

So – how can you become an intelligence analyst today (even if you’ve got no experience)?

The intelligence profession is expanding immensely, now incorporating ‘non-traditional’ roles and organisations. Today many government departments are leveraging intelligence analysts for their unique operational environments. Environmental, energy, and even education departments are using intelligence to cut through the noise and provide insight from information. We’re seeing the same enthusiasm for intelligence in the private sector also. Private companies, Defense contractors and OSINT businesses are demanding skilled and capable intelligence analysts! It’s now much easier to find experience, develop your skills and become an Intelligence professional than ever before… And so, this article will teach you the four steps to getting started in intelligence, even if you’ve got experience at all – Follow these four steps below to get started in intelligence today: Step 1. Identify Your Problem Step 2. Own Your Environment Step 3. Move the needle Step 4. Share your Intel

Step 1. Identify Your Problem. Define your Battlespace. 

Step 1 is all about determining your focus area. It involves choosing your battlespace. As a military intelligence analyst, you are posted to a different location and unit every 3-4 years. These re-deployments require you to refocus on a new problem or battlespace. As an intelligence analyst, you need to define the ‘problem set’ you’re going to own. There’s a range of different environments for you to operate in, each will have unique challenges and interesting elements. However, an Intelligence analyst cannot be everything to everyone. You cannot spread yourself too thin on the ground. The best intelligence comes from that which is highly targeted and highly focused. So, to become an intelligence analyst today, the first step is to define the problem you’re going to become a subject matter expert in. To do this ask yourself the following questions;

• What news reporting, blogs and current affairs am I most interested in?
• If I could learn the inner workings of an issue or problem – what would it be?
• If I had to brief the president (or insert key decision maker) on a topic or issue, what would it be?

The goal here is to identify the operational environment. You: “But Ben, I have so many things I want to learn and get involved in…” Me: “I got you fam!” …You don’t need to focus on this one thing forever – but you do need focus on it to start. This process will get you learning about intelligence, and developing the skills needed to become an intelligence professional.

This process will get you learning about intelligence, and developing the skills needed to become an intelligence professional.

I get it, there’s many a rabbit to chase – but you need to learn the skills, so focus on developing them here. To become a skilled and professional intelligence analyst, you need to choose ONE problem set and crush it before jumping into the next. Not sure what problem you want to get involved in? here are some examples; Criminal Intelligence

• Gangs
• Drugs
• Money Laundering
• Kidnap for Ranson
• Counter Narcotics
• Corruption
• Prisons / Corrections
• Border Protection
• Organised Crime
• Homicide
• Explosive Ordinance (IEDs etc)
• Arson
• Issue Motivated Groups & Extremists
• Identity Theft and Fraud
• Illegal Wildlife Poaching & Smuggling

Terrorism

• Islamic Extremism
• Religious Extremism
• Ideological Extremism
• Domestic Terrorism
• Terrorist Funding (Hawala etc)

Espionage

• Corporate Espionage
• Counter Espionage

Defense and Military Intelligence

• Small Arms and Munitions
• Explosive Ordinance (IEDs)
• Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency
• Black Swan
• Geo-Politics and strategic awareness
• Missiles
• Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear Energy (CBRNE)
• Targeting
• PSYOPS

Non-profit Intelligence 

• Child exploitation
• Illegal slavery
• Illegal labour

If none of these ‘problem stets’ tickle your fancy, consider something you want to learn more about – a problem you would like to fix. You don’t need to be in one field of intelligence forever. But remember, the better you are at one the more transferrable your skills will be to the next. In the military, Intelligence analysts are reassigned and posted to a different location roughly every 3-4 years. This means they shift focus to a new operating environment, and a new problem set. My first assignment was in Counter-Insurgency (as Iraq and Afghanistan was the focus at the time), I then moved to a Counter-Terrorism role and now I specialise in Criminal Intelligence. Defining your operating environment is a lot like choosing your college major or your specialty. Except, it won’t cost you thousands if you get it wrong. Action Item: Before moving forward – you need to know the problem set that interests you. If you don’t have one, choose one from the list above. You need to have your problem set to move forward because step 2 is all about owning your environment.

Step 2. Own Your Environment

Question: What makes an Intelligence Professional successful? Answer: They understand their operating environment better than anyone else and offer unique insights that shape decisions. Welcome to step 2, becoming subject matter experts. This step is all about owning your environment. Here our job is to understand and own our operational environment so we can make informed assessments and provide unique insights. To do this, you gotta get into it… You can’t fake this part. To truly own your environment, successful intelligence analysts need to read / research and learning EVERYTHING relevant to their specific problem. Let’s say you’ve chosen to Domestic Terrorism, and you’re researching the threat posed by sovereign citizens. To provide any real value, you’re going to need to dive in and understand the context, and all elements of the problem. Same for counter-narcotics, illegal immigration, Islamic extremism and industrial espionage – Each present unique operational environments you need to learn about. Fortunately, you don’t need to be in the industry to learn and research it. Remember, we’re becoming intelligence analysts today, and you can become a subject matter expert in a specific problem very quickly. So, owning your environment involves the following elements:

• Identifying current trends and issues,
• Defining the problem(s) that exist and what causes them,
• Understanding what has happened to this point,
• Identifying information and knowledge gaps

Ok, so let’s own our environment… Identify Trends and Issues You can identify trends and issues by reading recent and relevant reporting about your specific problem. When you start there will already be people in this space so find those sources of information, see what they’ve said, see what they know. Now we’ve chosen our problem set, lean into it – identify texts, blogs, podcasts, resources, discussion forums, other professional and bodies also involved in this work. Start to build a picture of what has happened, what is happening, and what could happen tomorrow… Defining the problem(s) that exist and what causes them,  You will need to complete some research. Get into the details, read books and speak to people who are familiar with this issue / problem. Learn the backstory, and get to understand the nitty-gritty of your issue. Insight comes from these small details, so block out some time, turn off your phone and dive in. Seriously, to be a good intelligence professional, you need to have a passion for learning. I know it doesn’t sound as fun as picking locks and secretly recording conversations – but every good intelligence professional needs to understand the key issues and concerns of their operating environment. Understanding what has happened to this point Whats the [back] story, morning glory? To provide valuable intelligence moving forward, you need to understand what’s happened in the past. Identifying information and knowledge gaps Once you’ve ‘read in’, you’ll start to understand the issue in more detail and begin to develop your own list of information gaps – things you need to know. Identify you’re information requirements, what is it you don’t know? What’s missing? What elements need further research and investigation? When you start to identify the knowledge gaps – you can start to create intelligence that moves the needle. 

Step 3. Move the Needle

Intelligence analysts ‘move the needle‘ by making a valuable contribution to their operating environment. So, after learning the current trends and issues, you should have an understanding of what information is missing, and what needs further research. These knowledge gaps become your information requirements. Information requirements form the direction for intelligence collection. Let’s assume you’re interested in researching drug supply from Mexico across the border into the United States. In step two you researched the trends, issues and drivers for the problem and identified the historical context also – To move the needle, you need to identify what’s missing, what information is currently unknown… Mexico Drug Smuggling – Example:

• Is there a connection between drug supply and human trafficking from Mexico into the United States?
• Are drugs reportedly cheaper in one area of the United States than another? Why? Could this be linked to supply?
• Has the reported seizure rates of drugs from Mexico increased or decreased over the past 10 years? Does this indicate intervention is having a positive or negative effect on supply?

See these questions could then form your collection requirements, and answering then can actually have an impact in terms of resource allocation, targeting and crime reduction. **Note, I don’t have anything to do with counter-narcotic operations, nor do I know much about drug trade from Mexico into the United States – just using this as an example of how to identify information gaps** Develop an Intelligence Collection Plan Developing an intelligence collection plan is easier than it sounds… First, identify what information you need to know, Second, determine what resources you have to get the information, Third, request the information (as required), Fourth, conduct your own research at the same time. Here’s how it looks in a Gucci graphic below: Go Get That Info Without a functioning intelligence organisation supporting your information collection, you’ll need to do the majority of the collection yourself, But that’s fine – here are my recommendations; Break down your info gaps into manageable chunks, Use forums (i.e. Reddit), discussion boards and Q&A sites online (like Quora) to post questions, and ask for the information you need. Find and email professionals on linkedIn, Twitter and Facebook who can help answer your questions, Conduct interviews, like actually speak to real humans about your questions and see if they can provide insights to answer your collection requirements. If you’re not too comfortable reaching out to people directly, either treat it like a HUMINT challenge or write an email that asks them to help. Alternatively, you could email and schedule a time to chat after giving them notice of your info gaps. Really the point here is that you take steps to get the information you need…that’s intelligence. Don’t wait for it to come to you. Fight for information. Analyse and Assess Once you start your own research and receive information back, you need to know how to evaluate and analyse it. I’m not going to go into heaps of detail here because we’ve covered ‘how to analyse information’, and ‘how to turn information into intelligence using structured analytical techniques’ in other posts. Use the tools and skills of analysis to evaluate and analyse the information to extract meaning and provide insight. And, voilà – Now you’ve got yourself some fancy intel.

Step 4. Share Your Intelligence

Ok, so you’re probably thinking – “I’ve done all this research, I’m pretty au fiat with sovereign citizens, or whatever the hell is going on in Venezuela, what can I do with all this…?” So this is where the fun begins – You’re now a subject matter expert, you’ve got insights to offer and intelligence to provide. You know need to share it with the world. Today, there’s more and more companies, organisations and non-profits desperate for unique insights and who can benefit for your intelligence. Now we just need to find them and get their attention. Social Media Do you even social? While it’s taken me a few years, I’ve recently got well into Twitter – perhaps it’s my short attention span or love of funny memes, but 140 characters seem to be enough for me to ‘say what I need to say and move on’. But there are tones of value on social media, which provides you with an opportunity to not only share your intel with the world but to reach out and connect with people and organisations who can benefit. I recommend:

• Create a Twitter account specifically for your chosen problem set. You could use your personal account, but I’d create a new one and then start finding those people in the same circles.
• Use hashtags, and keyword searches on Twitter and Facebook to find people have the conversations you can value add to (in fact you should have done this back in step 2).
• Reach out, comment, post and ask them to read and review your intelligence.
• Submit your work via email to businesses, firms, agencies and non-profits who could benefit from it and seek feedback.

Blogging Platform Consider starting a blog (i.e. WordPress etc) to host your intelligence and make it easy for people to find you online and share work. Find Decision Makers  Find the decision-makers in your environment and get the intel to them. Find them online, find them in person, find them and get it to them. If you’re wanting a career in intelligence, or to develop intelligence skills – think of the customer who could benefit from your information, from your knowledge and get them the info. You can start developing your intelligence skills today. You don’t need permission, and you don’t need to wait. In fact, we’ve just put the finishing touches on our Online Intelligence Analysis Training Course, where we personally step you through the intelligence cycle and show you how to create quality intelligence assessments. For more information on our Online Intelligence Course – Click here. In summary, the four steps to become an intelligence analyst today (even if you’ve got no experience) are as follows;

1. Identify and define your operational environment
2. Research it thoroughly and become a subject matter expert.
3. Move the needle by providing insights into a problem, and
4. Share your intelligence with decision makers and people who can use it

Let us know what problem sets and operating environments you’re interested in working in – is there a specific problem you want to research, learn and impact? ** If you’ve read through to this point and you’re motivated to get started, I’m currently offering an opportunity for readers to work with me, and go through this process step-by-step. If you’re interested in learning how to create intelligence products today firstly sign up to receive our weekly Intel 101 newsletter, and shoot me an email at ben@intelligence101.com. ***

From Information to Intelligence

• Develop a comprehensive knowledge of the Intelligence Cycle and the Foundations of Intelligence Analysis?
• Learn how to make Intelligence collection plans and write Intelligence Briefs?
• Understand Intelligence Collection methods including HUMINT, SIGINT, IMINT, GEOINT, and OSINT?
• Compile Strategic Analysis and deliver Oral Briefings?
• Apply your Intelligence training to different roles and environments including Law Enforcement, Military, Counter-terrorism?
• Develop your critical thinking and learnt to use various analytical methods?
• Understand the impact of Intelligence in multi-disciplinary roles?
• Then join us in our interactive Intelligence Training Course today.

To your success, Ben.