What do spies put on their resume?

[Billdo]

You mean they don’t just list this:

Central Intelligence Agency, Langley, Va., 2001-2008

I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you

[keithmassey]

@sciurophobic

If you were at an interview and you were asked what you did at the overseas field site could you give a more responsive answer than “Sorry, that’s classified”?

That’s right. All I’m ever allowed to say about what I did is contained in that unclassified blurb. And notice “overseas” is awfully broad. I can’t be more specific than that either.

[Voyager]

@trmatthe

In the UK they tend to provide you with your next position as part of the discharge process. There are a huge number of companies who are on friendly terms with the services.

Or else send you to the Village.

[Superfluous_Parentheses]

@Hazle_Weatherfield

Seriously, everywhere you apply for a job or interview, they’re going to want to contact your former employer.

Seriously. No, they don’t.

[Jurph]

I was in an unclassified meeting today with a bunch of folks with varying levels of clearance. I know that there were many people in the room who were cleared for less info than me… but at some point you just have to assume that about half the folks in the room have higher clearances than you, and they’ve got their own unclassified lingo for stuff they’ve done. For example, one of the main speakers today was able to list most of his resume at the unclassified level by saying what city he worked in, and which branch of the DoD he was working for - “I worked in New Mexico, officially for the Air Force” etc. - and everyone who knows what’s in that city, and what was going on during those years, knows which program he was working on.

On the flip side, I actually interviewed someone who worked for the CIA and ended up hiring her into my section at work. I knew lots of people from her area of expertise, so their first names were a shorthand for what issues she worked on. We had a very pleasant conversation over lunch that consisted of snippets like:

“So did you help Jim during March '02?”
“No, he was two offices down from where I was when that project was going on.”
“Oh, you were with Cliff!”
“Other direction down the hall.”
“…oh, you were with those guys.”:eek:

…and so on. It’s not that hard; if you know the community that the prospective employee worked in, it’s easy to figure out what they did. If you don’t know that community, you probably don’t have the clearance or the need-to-know to find out what they did anyway, so just call their boss and ask if they did good work.

[Zoe]

Insurance salesman
librarian
school recruiter

Very often the “official” doesn’t want to sound like he or she has a glamourous job, just a routine job. The exception is when that person is doing a somewhat cool job anyway and there is just more to it than meets the eye.

Exapno Mapcase, Moneypenny sends her love.

[keithmassey]

@Hazle_Weatherfield

What an excellent question. Seriously, everywhere you apply for a job or interview, they’re going to want to contact your former employer. If you are a spy, will they make up some fake job along with a “contact” for potential employees? If they didn’t do something like this for you, it would be hard to get a job because you wouldn’t be able to account for a huge gap in your employment or provide references.

The Intelligence Agencies do have a way to verify the fact of someone’s employment there once upon a time. While I was still at the NSA and looking for a job in NJ (so I could live with my wife who was already living there), I was able to have HR send an official letter to my prospective employer confirming my employment. Later, I wrote Intermediate Arabic for Dummies and I sent a letter to the NSA to arrange the same confirmation for the publisher so they could list my employment in my bio.

[NurwhalesRyummy]

They would be straightforward and candid, it would state that they worked for the CIA or NSA. Working for the CIA or NSA is not secret, you just aren’t supposed to flaunt it (i.e. walk into a bar and start telling girls that you are a current or former CIA agent). There are several positions in the CIA and NSA, not all are undercover cold war spies (although they do exist). Supposing that you were under deep cover for you entire time, (this would mainly pertain to the CIA) you would probably list what your cover would have been, which would most likely be the State Department.

[furryman]

I was a Bailsbondsman with Shaken not Stirred Bonds.

[Johnny_L.A]

Maxwell Smart put Greeting Card Salesman.

[aruvqan]

@davekhps

This really isn’t too challenging-- after all, they don’t advertise clandestine openings on Monster.com or USAJOBS. Sure, you might get recruited into such work from there, but once you’re “in,” then you’re just dealing with finding a new job via alternative methods that everybody else would be familiar with (word-of-mouth, recommendations from mentors, even jobs postings on classified intranets).
.

LOL while I was in college [my degree is in political science with a minor in sociology] the CIA actually did spend the better part of 2 years trying to recruit me. It did lead to some really fun summer semester ‘educational opportunities’ down in DC. Turns out my scholastic advisor was ‘retired’ from the CIA … always made me wonder exactly how retired he really was, he was pretty young. [I think he was in his early 40s or so]

[mbh]

@An_Arky

She “worked” for a front company called Brewster Jennings & Associates.

A hot blonde worked for a company called BJ & A?

[Kent_Clark]

Here’s the CIA job board. Note the thread is labeled “Home>Careers & Internships>Career Opportunities>Clandestine Service Positions.”

[md2000]

@mbh

A hot blonde worked for a company called BJ & A?

In fact, at the time - I recall one newspaper article that mentioned the reporter did a search for that company (I assume that was the one), and found someone else with an online resume listing the same company. They emailed them to ask if they in fact worked for the CIA like Valerie Plame, and got no reply - but the resume disappeared from the internet right away.

They prudently did not identify the other person.