Spicing up Your Future – Working as an Economist at the Secret Service

Written by Marie Fichtner, second year Economics Master - first published autumn 2024.

Marie Fichtner var tidligere redaktør i Observator og er nå uteeksaminert med en mastergrad i samfunnsøkonomi fra UiO. Også kjent som første masterstudent som fikk være seminarleder for andre masterstudenter - i Matte 2.

Spicing up Your Future – Working as an Economist at the Secret Service

Research or private sector work is not for you, but you still want to spice up your work life? Don’t worry, there might be a spot at the Secret Service for you!

In the U.S. over one million people hold top-secret clearances working for one of the 18 intelligence agencies. Economists at the CIA are assessing “foreign economic, trade, and financial interests that affect U.S. security interests”. Let us therefore have a closer look at what those intelligence units are doing and what you as an economist would work with.

What are intelligence units doing?

The main tasks of secret services are to combat international terrorism and monitor military operations. This also includes tracking suspicious people and contacting those who have specific information. Therefore intelligence units do also cooperate internationally. Together they collect information about wars (e.g. the newest plans of Russia targeting Ukraine), negotiate about hostage exchange and secure high-ranking officials on travels. However, despite these rather typical jobs for this domain, there is also high demand for economists to ensure economic security.

Why is it crucial to gather information about economic security?

At the latest, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shown which economic consequences wars have directly and indirectly on the world economy. The general price level skyrocketed just days later, and overall global headline inflation rose from 4.7 percent in 2021 to 8.7 percent in 2022. The dependence on Russian energy was a major problem for some Central European economies. One might wonder whether government representatives have not seriously questioned the high proportion of Russian gas imports before. 

For this reason, economic experts from the intelligence services need to monitor dependencies on security-related issues such as energy dependence or foreign infrastructure investments more closely than before. Industrial espionage in companies in order to copy foreign cutting-edge technologies is also steadily increasing which hinders domestic economic growth.

Getting a job as an economist at the Secret Service

Getting a job in the Secret Service has gotten increasingly transparent over the last years since they publish more information now. There’s high demand for IT engineers and translators. But there are also job postings for economists and social scientists that will start as analysts for specific regions. To get the job, you need to pass an assessment centre and an extensive security screening of yourself, your family and friends. Such a screening normally takes multiple months and consists of several steps.

If you want to join the Secret Service, the most important thing is that you are interested in international affairs. You must be open minded, discreet and analytically gifted. You are especially of interest for the Secret Service if you speak specific languages like Arabic, Mandarin or Persian. However, you can also learn new languages later as part of your job.

Having a closer look at career opportunities in the Secret Service

Now let us have a closer look at a current job posting for an economic analyst for African countries at a German Intelligence Service: The tasks will include writing analyses, reports and scientific contributions as well as forecasts. Therefore an analytical mind to assess your findings is necessary. Further inquiries from the parliament have to be answered and meetings have to be prepared. You are not told more than this rather limited information until your first day at the new workplace. This implies that you won’t know on which country desk or on which specific topics you are working until then.

There are also other ways for students to enter the Secret Service: At the British Secret Services MI5, MI6 and GCHQ you can do an eleven week internship if you fulfil certain criteria. At the German Secret Service you can study various Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees and stay there afterwards. 

If you have worked there for a few years, you can get the opportunity to change from your desk job to the operational business which you could call a “secret agent” job. In the German Secret Service, you will then get different identities and a weapon, but solely for the use of self-defence.

How glamorous is life as a secret agent really? 

In all these positions, you are advised to tell as few people as possible about where you work. It is not only important for the work itself, but also for the security of your family. Thus it is common that secret agents often use cover stories. Even if you are allowed to tell your closest family and friends where you work, you cannot tell them what you are working on and where you are travelling to for business trips. Also it is forbidden to travel privately to certain countries on vacation.

These jobs seem to be very fancy. However you need to be aware that security threats don’t know the difference between workdays and evenings or weekends. Thus your working hours can often not be planned and will vary a lot. Further, employees reported that they felt personally responsible if they could have hindered an attack if they would have seen it coming. Thus working there might be mentally draining. Some agents abroad were also targeted by shooters. 

If you are interested in these jobs, you should check out the series “The Bureau”. It has been recommended by lots of agents as it is supposed to be the series that is the closest to reality!