Because the Central Intelligence Agency is called upon to provide intelligence on so many different subjects, we have so many different types of jobs to perform. We have people who have college degrees in a wide range of subjects and many of them are experts in their fields. Many of them also have masters degrees and doctorates! They have worked long and hard to learn what they know; their excellence is what makes this Agency special.
So what type of people does each directorate need? Let's take a look.
If you worked in the Directorate of Operations (DO), you would like to travel and have a great curiosity about the world and its different cultures. You would like to work with people from all over the world, be able to adapt to any situation (especially dangerous ones!), be well educated, know other languages, be good at working with lots of different kinds of people, and be courageous, well disciplined, and able to accept anonymity. The DO officer knows, no matter how good a job he or she has done, most people--the public--will never know it. The rewards for the officer are the knowledge that he or she contributed to the security of our country and is recognized by his or her peers.
A person working in the Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T) is the type who like to use his or her creativity to reach beyond the stars. To work beyond the state of the art every day is normal in this directorate. If you worked here, you would love
science or engineering and have the creativity to carry your knowledge to new horizons. A DS&T person is the type of person who likes to see quick results and likes to know they have made an impact with what they do.
If you like to write papers, long and short, if you like to put puzzles together, solve mysteries and have the patience to go through a mound of different types of information to do all this, then the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) is for you. A DI person must have excellent writing and analytical skills and have the ability and poise to brief an audience of one or many on what they know. Just like in school, a DI analyst sometimes works under a deadline and a lot of pressure. Being late on a report in school may mean losing a grade, but in the Agency the stakes are much higher: The safety of our country and its citizens.
The Directorate of Administration (DA) is the type of place that attracts the person who may be a specialist in a field such as an artist or finance officer, or a generalist of many different talents, but either way it is a place where people are constantly challenged to try different things. If you are the type of person who likes to learn new things and likes a wide variety of experiences, then you are a DA person. DA people can adapt to any situation, anywhere and have the confidence and energy to get the job done.