CIA reviews

CIA managers are not trained to recognize FMLA or ADA protected absences, particularly for sandwich generation employees, or those with caregiving responsibilities. This disproportionately affects female employees, in particular, single mothers. In several instances I witnessed, this had a biased and negative effect on employees with caregiving responsibilities, both in caring for elderly parents, and young children. Managers consistently failed to effectively recognize and timely employ common accommodations such as flexible scheduling, intermittent leave without pay, and access to leave donation programs. Even worse, personnel evaluation policies fail to include language regarding extenuating circumstances, making it easy to paint capable employees struggling to balance medical caregiving needs of parents and children as poor performers. Although many CIA managers are willing to work with their employees to balance life and work during times of medical crises, CIA policy appears not to have changed much in the last few decades.

Where to start? Polygraphers who accuse you of sexually abusing your own children just to get a rise out of you. Your life is the Agency's, they insist on knowing everything so don't expect ANY privacy. Survive sexual abuse? They'll want ALL the details on record/video. Unqualified people in positions of power (bc they couldn't fill the position with someone qualified) making the calls. People with whom you've never directly reported make career making/ending decisions and rumor/innuendo amongst these decision makers make or break your career and you have ZERO recourse. The "Directors Advisory Group" is a useless PAR bullet, they will do nothing to upset their career plans. Seniors expecting credit for your promotion (egotistic "I got you there") when you've done the years of hard work and seven day work weeks to get there. You're in a bubble the entire work day: no personal phone, no encrypted "open line" so you don't want ANYONE calling your work phone lest they reveal private information every intel service in the world is listening to. You may not even have Internet access (no, I'm not kidding here). Day one they tell you "it's harder to get into the Agency than into Harvard or Yale" so the ego building begins right away. The "I'm a special snowflake" message continues, becomes an integral part of self-identity and makes it tough to leave. But for my friends and colleagues still in, there is a better life on the outside. You may think "what could I possibly be qualified to do in the outside world??" but those of us out now know the private sector recognizes the intense responsibility we've had -- and they reward accordingly. Reach out to us on social media before you begin your job search bc you WILL under estimate your worth and we want to support you. It's a rough transition. But you'll have freedom, no longer living paycheck to paycheck on Fed salary in NoVA, no longer the constant paranoia, no longer the "how do I fill out this basic form when it asks for employer?" Truth - the work in private sector will never rival our Agency's work and... like a divorce, it will take years to get over the end of your Agency relationship/obsession. And be prepared, many of your "still in" friends *will* ghost you. Once you're out you're dead to them, out of distrust or CI paranoia. You will serve in war zones, have injuries but you'll have NONE of the benefits of our military. (No record of service when you're a spy.) If you're in a high-demand job (i.e. counter terrorism) then plan to move into another job once you've had a kid -- there is no work/life balance in some of these positions unless you have a stay at home parent or nanny (neither of which you'll afford on a fed salary). The truly exhilarating work will demand time from your family - period, end of story. You marry someone on the inside or expect to divorce (if you're in the D.O.) And if you read this and apply anyway, then those of us who've been through the process have no interest in hearing your "woe is me, I sacrificed for my country" story. We've all been there done that but didn't have the benefit of Glassdoor to know what we were getting into.