A conversation turns from sport, to the economy, to politics. And you’re there not just to translate it, not just to interpret it; you’re there to add a depth of understanding that enables us to make the right choices to help safeguard national security.
As a Russian intelligence analyst at MI5, you’ll be a core member of the investigative team. Your work will involve translating a wide variety of challenging audio and textual material from Russian into English. You’ll listen to Russian language telephone calls and work with written documents intercepted under warrant, and your translations and analysis will feed directly into the team’s investigations. Your excellent Russian language comprehension will enable us to make the right choices to help safeguard national security.
This role will stretch you like no other and you’ll develop not only your Russian language but also a range of other workplace skills in a supportive environment that is both friendly and informal. Every day you’ll be exposed to new subtleties and nuances in the Russian language, new terminology, new political, cultural and social differences.
Using your specialist Russian language skills and your knowledge of Russia’s cultural affairs, history, politics, ideology and economy, you will add real understanding to the intelligence that has been gathered and deliver clear analysis in a variety of ways. Your work will enable us to take a well-informed view of potential threats to national security, including terrorism and espionage.
As your experience grows and following relevant training and development you should have the opportunity to become more directly involved in investigations, working closely with colleagues from across the wider UK intelligence community and presenting on your work to other departments or agencies.
Your linguistic skills and cultural awareness will be invaluable as you’ll be asked to contribute to team discussions on how to progress investigations. You also may be involved in providing interpreting support for agent meetings or assisting with delivering realistic training for our agent runners, all of which will enable you to gain a deeper understanding of what is fascinating work.
If you would like to develop as a Russian investigator, then a few years down the line you’ll have the opportunity to take our internal investigative assessment centre. If you are successful, you could go on to develop as an investigative officer within the team, drawing upon your Russian language skills and wider knowledge of Russian culture and current affairs. You’ll help piece together intelligence and make informed decisions on a daily basis that will help to protect national security.
Later in your career you could also have the opportunity to take further assessments and training to undertake operational work such as agent running.
See the 'Day in the life' page to get more of an inside view on the work of a Russian Intelligence Analyst.
The skills
Whether you developed your Russian language skills through academic study, in the workplace or while living or working abroad, you have a genuine passion for languages. You’ll thrive on the challenge of applying your Russian language skills on a daily basis to provide expert support to investigative officers.
You may have only just completed academic study or you may have already been working using your Russian for years, either way your language ability will enable you, for example, to comfortably read newspaper articles and understand news broadcasts in Russian.
You’ll be able to translate from Russian into clear, well-drafted and balanced written reports in English, drawing out the relevant points from sometimes lengthy pieces of material. The language test on our website is indicative of the level of Russian you will need to be successful in the role. See the 'Check your skills' page to give the test a go.
Alongside your language skills you'll also be confident verbally briefing investigative and operational teams and other colleagues across the intelligence agencies. Enthusiasm, flexibility and team-working are all important. You should also have an analytical and enquiring mindset, sound judgement and good attention to detail. It goes without saying that we will support your learning and development at every opportunity.
Recruitment process
First, we strongly advise you to check your suitability for the role. We have developed some tests that reflect the nature of the work of Russian intelligence analysts at MI5. These challenges will enable you to check your Russian language comprehension skills and ability to recall detail.
If you then wish to apply, the first thing we will ask you to do is complete our pre-screening questions to see if you meet our initial eligibility criteria. lf you do, we will then ask you to begin an application. You’ll need to create an online login. You can do this by providing your full name, email address and a memorable password. Once you have successfully created a personal account, you will be required to complete an online application form.
As well as basic biographical details and your education and employment history to date, you will need to provide details of your Russian language skills and any other languages you have learned. You will be asked how you learned the language, how you currently use your language skills and to what standard you can speak, read and write these languages and dialects. You will also be asked about what motivated you to apply for this role.
Please note that if you have applied for a Russian language vacancy at MI5, MI6 or
GCHQ within the last 12 months and been unsuccessful at the language test stage, you will not be eligible to reapply for this role at this time.
Our recruitment team will complete an application sift to assess how far you meet the job specification. Successful applicants will be invited to attend a Russian language test to check whether or not you have the skills required to work as a Russian intelligence analyst at MI5.
At the language test, we will assess your Russian language ability across a range of tasks, including reading, listening comprehension and Russian written skills. You should ensure that you brush up on your Russian grammar in preparation for the test.
Assuming you pass the Russian language test, you will then be invited to attend an assessment centre, which will include a face-to-face interview and role play exercise. lf you pass the assessment centre, you will have a security interview with a vetting officer and a hearing test at a later date. You may also have a final selection interview.
Please note, you should only launch your application from within the UK. If you are based overseas, you should wait until you visit the UK to launch an application. Applying from outside the UK will impact on our ability to progress your application.
Guaranteed Interview Scheme
As part of our commitment to the “Positive About Disabled People” scheme we offer an interview to all candidates with a disability who meet our minimum criteria for the job vacancy for which they are applying. This is known as the Guaranteed Interview Scheme (GIS).
Along with the standard eligibility requirements for this post, your application will be assessed on how far you meet the job specification based on your application and your Russian language ability. On successful completion of this stage, you will be invited to the Russian language test, which acts as our guaranteed interview.
Our partners
We work closely with our partners the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). You may also wish to visit their websites to find out about their Russian language vacancies.
Please note, you may apply for more than one Russian language role within the intelligence agencies simultaneously. You should be aware, however, that the three agencies use the same language tests for Russian language vacancies. Therefore, if you are invited to language testing, your test results will be shared amongst the three agencies. You will only take one test.
Please note that if you are unsuccessful at the language testing stage of your application to one of the three agencies, you will not be eligible to reapply for Russian language vacancies at SIS, GCHQ or MI5 within a 12-month period.
To view current SIS vacancies visit www.sis.gov.uk or www.gchq.gov.uk for GCHQ.
Eligibility criteria
To be eligible to apply, you must meet our residency criteria. You must be a born or naturalised British citizen and one of your parents must be a British citizen or have substantial ties to the UK.
Candidates must normally have been resident in the UK for nine out of the last 10 years prior to application. This is particularly important if you were born outside the UK. You will nonetheless be considered if you have, for example, served overseas with HM Forces or in some other official capacity as a representative of Her Majesty's Government, studied abroad, or lived overseas with your parents.
Due to vetting requirements you will need to be 18 years old, or above, to apply. Your application may take around six months to process.
Discretion
Discretion is vital. You should not discuss your application, other than with your partner or a close family member, providing that they are British. You should also make them aware of the importance of discretion. You should not post on social media sites about your application or discuss it with anyone else at this stage. You will receive further guidance during the recruitment process.
Please note you should only launch your application from within the UK. If you are based overseas, you should wait until you visit the UK to launch an application. Applying from outside the UK will impact on our ability to progress your application.
MI5 is committed to reflecting both equal opportunities and the society we protect. Work life balance is important to us at MI5 and we offer flexible working where operational commitments allow.
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