I’m an Counterintelligence Special Agent Officer, I am interested in learning more about private sector / business, threat intelligence, competition Intelligence, and investigation specialist.
Does my Army training and qualification transfer or must I pursue more training?
Cheers
Chris
Answers
Hi Chris,
There are a few paths you can look at based on your experience. One that I am very familiar is competitive intelligence. All companies need to understand what their competitors are doing in the market. Larger companies will have an internal competitive intelligence team. Smaller companies will look at third parties like these guys (https://sedulogroup.com/), (https://octopusintelligence.com/), (https://www.aqute.com/), (https://tysonheinz.com/).
The CI companies use open-source, interviews, and other activities you are very familiar with to build a competitive picture for a company. The reports usually focus on products, but I have seen them cover strategy and company health in the M&A field.
You can also look at the physical security industry. Large companies in tech and manufacturing have physical security teams that need folks who are good at human investigation - think insider threat in terms of stealing data and to a lesser extent, physical threats. In some companies, this team is in Human Resources, in others, it is a separate part of the organization.
Threat intelligence in the civilian world is more of a cybersecurity play and has to do with capturing data on attack methodologies and new attack types and sharing that data with cybersecurity teams so they can be ready to attack.
Finally, business intelligence (BI) has nothing to do with intelligence but is instead related to a business looking internally at their own data across their many computer systems and trying to figure out process improvements to help the company's bottom line. This is the world of the financial analyst.
Take a look at the competitive intelligence and the physical security markets - they will likely match best to your expertise. Your army training certainly prepares you for those jobs and actually makes you an experienced and competitive candidate.
Let me know if I can offer any further assistance and feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Best Regards
Bill
HI Chris,
I noticed you had also posted about opportunities related to Change Management so it appears you are looking for ways to apply the strong skills you acquired to the private sector. I'm wondering if you have considered opportunities in the insurance sector. As a large organization we have a need for people with the skill sets you offer. I think there would be opportunities in managing cyber security teams, fraud\Claim investigators teams and change management. If you would like to discuss how to map your skills to opportunities in the Insurance industry I can refer you to people at Travelers that help with that. You can reach me at jporell@travelers.com
Chris,
Bill provided some very good insights. I worked as a 3 day TAP instructor at Wright Patterson AFB and saw a lot intel folks move into business. Although towards the end of my tenure, businesses were looking for degrees in a business specialty, i.e. accounting, IT etc.
Bill spoke about the IT intelligence, competitive, and physical security. I would suggest some career research and networking. Look at career groups on LinkedIn and Facebook, to start reading and learning about the careers. Follow Micheal Quinn, who provides a great insight in how to "network". You also need to take your very military profile and tailor it to the civilian market, if that is where you wish to go. For instance your "search line" Astute Leader & Multiplier | Strategic Thinker | Team Builder | Problem Solver | Curious Learner | Army Veteran | I Love a cool breeze on a long cycle ride, state nothing about intelligence and this is the line recruiters search first. You might do well with a government contractor, who would look at your titles and understand them, unfortunately non military companies cannot nor will not go past your "about" paragraph that does not speak to intelligence. Civilian companies do not need your entire history, what they want to see is experience that lines up with their job postings and you will not learn what those qualifications are without networking and/or Informational Interviews in the career field you select.
I hope you understand this is about meeting the non military recruiting world, versus working in government military contracting. Again, TAG "search" line concise to a career field, short summary of your qualifications, and accomplishments with #$% to accent value in the career field will keep recruiters reading. Remember that you are part of the 0.5% of Americans who serve their country. You are very well respected, but the chance non military have been part of the 0.5% simply means they will not understand your language or experiences-without translation. Thank you for your support and sacrifices. God Bless https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/come-prepared-transition-process-gap-between-civilian-jerry-welsh/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-more-right-jerry-welsh/
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