The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) isn’t the only place to practice your Human Intelligence (HUMINT) skills, but the agency plays a key role in providing military intelligence to warfighters, defense policymakers, and force planners in the DoD and the Intelligence Community (IC). The DIA supports U.S. military planning, operations, and weapon systems acquisitions, overseeing intelligence operations from the planning phase to the execution phase in peacetime or war. The DIA offers a HUMINT officer career path.
HUMINT officers at the DIA provide actionable intelligence to protect the front lines of the United States’s defenses. The DIA’s HUMINT officers have a number of functions in support of warfighters all around the world. HUMINT roles fall into the three career specialities: clandestine collection, overt collection, and operations support.
The Primary HUMINT Roles at the DIA
The categories have various ways of overlapping and working together, but each career path is better suited for different personalities and skillsets.
Clandestine Operations
If you like to travel and learn languages, this path is for you. HUMINT officers at the DIA operate globally in order to report on intelligence information derived from human sources. Intelligence needs are defined by national, combatant command (CCMD), and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). Working in this career path means having the ability (and desire) to understand foreign cultures and languages in support of your mission. You also need specific skills and technical abilities to manage sources who may have privileged information that is pertinent to the DoD and other national security decision makers. Sound judgement in this role is key, as well as interpersonal and project management skills. While you may not need a project management certification, you do need to keep your security threats, programs, and information straight as you navigate between the field and headquarters.
Overt Collection
If Law & Order or other shows like that were your jam and you thrive on openly interacting with intelligence sources to obtain vital information in support of U.S. security, then this might be your path. While a poker face is still helpful, information in overt collection is without concealment and it’s obtained through legal and open collection means. Officers in this line of work use observation, elicitation, interrogation, intelligence exchange, liaison activities, or military source operations. Just like those involved in clandestine operations, overt collections supports HUMINT operations for priorities with national, CCMD, and the OSD, in addition to other HUMINT collection specialities. The focused roles in overt collection include debriefers, interrogators, defense, liaison officers and field collection officers.
Operations Support
An ever present need behind any operation is the support to manage, direct, and oversee all of the different missions. Whether additional research is required or multiple sources need to be tested and synthesized, operations support plays a critical role in the overall effectiveness of the HUMINT operations at the DIA. Officers in operations support manage, guide, and oversee HUMINT operations from both overt and clandestine HUMINT officers. Operations support generates the directives from various platforms, helps to focus the collection efforts, and ensures that quality reporting is produced and collaborated across the intelligence community. Those headed into this type of work should look for roles like an Operations Support Officer or a HUMINT Targeting Officer.
support HUMINT Efforts at DIA
If you’re interested in starting or continuing your career path in HUMINT, at DIA, they have a comprehensive vetting process. It’s critical to ensure your interests, work ethic, and abilities are the right fit. If your resume makes it through the round of a team of HUMINT officers, then you get to show them your writing skills and conduct an interview. After those steps, it’s time to begin the security clearance process and get entered into their hiring pool.
