Intelligence Officer FAQ

They help to obtain, in accordance with the Government's requirements, intelligence about the capabilities, intentions or activities, of people or organisations outside Australia. ASIS's Intelligence Officers are expected to have outstanding interpersonal and relationship management skills. This is not your average role; our officers need to be energetic, flexible and possess excellent judgement.

After passing the required training, Intelligence Officers can apply for postings overseas, which can range from a few months to a few years.

We can offer long-term career opportunities for the right person. Employment and promotion decisions in ASIS are based on merit, with regular promotion and internal transfer opportunities available.

At this stage, you should not discuss your application with anyone, even family and friends. This may seem overly cautious but there are important reasons why, which will become clear when/if you meet with an ASIS officer. If you have any questions or concerns please call the relevant enquiries number for further advice.

It is better not to raise the topic of your application with anyone and if questions are raised, to say as little as possible. We understand this can be difficult, particularly with friends and family. When/if you meet with an ASIS officer, we can provide further advice on how to handle this matter. In the meantime, if you need guidance on how to ensure the confidentiality of your application, please call the relevant enquiries number.

We are looking for highly motivated and dedicated professionals from a broad range of backgrounds and/or academic disciplines. If you want to work for ASIS, you will need to have certain attributes, which are set out in the selection documentation.

We recruit Intelligence Officers from a wide range of disciplines, including but not limited to arts, politics, international relations, science, engineering, law, IT, finance/business and economics.

It is not essential to your application, but is of course an advantage. Language training is provided if you are working in an operational position where knowledge of another language is required

There is no age requirement.

Once you’ve submitted your completed online application form, you will receive an on-screen confirmation that your application has been successfully received by ASIS. Beyond this, you will only be contacted again if you’ve progressed through to the next stage of the application process.

Due to the number of applications received and important national security considerations, we can’t provide this kind of feedback.

We accept Intelligence Officer applications all year round, so you can apply at any time.

The selection process incorporates extensive security and background checking which can take some time, depending on your personal history. As a rough guide, Intelligence Officer applications generally take around seven months from the date of application to the offer of employment.

Our Intelligence Officers work in Canberra with the opportunity to undertake postings in a range of overseas locations.

There are no special arrangements with the Australian Public Service (APS) or Australian Defence Force (ADF) for members to transfer directly to ASIS. However, some conditions of service may be recognised (E.g., long-service leave.). While APS or ADF members are eligible to apply for any advertised vacancy, they will have to compete on merit with other applicants for each position.

In some cases a current security clearance will speed up the application process. Everyone applying for a job in ASIS is required to go through extensive security and background checking. However, the time required to complete these checks may be reduced if you have already held a position requiring a security clearance. Whether this saves us any time, however, depends on the type of clearance previously held, the agency for which the clearance was issued, and how recently the clearance was issued or re-evaluated.

All applicants must have Australian citizenship. Employees of ASIS may have dual Australian-foreign citizenship, but it is a condition of employment that you do not use your foreign citizenship for the period of your employment with ASIS, including not using your foreign passport for overseas travel.