Bewertungen für Bureau of Diplomatic Security

Pros

Travel, interesting work, challenging, rewarding

Kontras

Promotions and overseas assignments hard to obtain

Rat an das Management

More transparency

Pros

- Up to half your career can be spent working at challenging U.S. embassies or consulates overseas in work that feels very meaningful. - You will have almost an entirely new job/responsibility every 2-3 years.

Kontras

- The organization rarely innovates. - The agency is very heavy in the middle and it is extremely difficult to move up. - There is little continuity causing limited professional development in certain skills requiring a high degree of technical proficiency; the same can be said of the inability to work complex investigations.

Pros

Supporting U.S. diplomacy, living overseas, good pay and benefits, lots of responsibility for those willing to take it. Broad exposure to embassy security, dignitary protection, and criminal investigations.

Kontras

Move every 2-3 years, broad mission precludes true specialization, up-or-out system forces field agents into management too soon. Increased world turmoil means more unaccompanied tours and hardship postings.

Rat an das Management

Focus on fundamentals. Articulate the mission and don't try to sex it up. Don't attempt to appease disgruntled agents who would rather be elsewhere. The job is the job -- if someone is "too good" for it, show them the door.

Pros

Diplomatic Security special agents are federal law enforcement officers who serve worldwide with a wide variety of duties and functions. Great bureau to work for within the U.S. Department of State.

Kontras

Constant re-assignments from domestic to overseas assignments generally every 2 to 3 years for Special Agents.

Rat an das Management

Continue to be open to change

Pros

Travel benefits Pay and OT Overseas opportunities for you and family Great career diversification Wide exposure to many law enforcement and security portfolios Unique duty to protect US interests, personnel and property overseas

Kontras

Unfair assignments process (plan on "bidding" every two years for a job) Unclear expectations on what typical career progression should be...you'll be given many "used car salesman" type of lines as a means to justify where one should be assigned yet preferential treatment to "cushy" posts exists for the lucky few

Rat an das Management

Treat your working level employees with incentives to stay. Honest and fair assignments. Homesteading. Flex-hours. 10+ hour workdays in an office/headquarters environment is not sustainable yet management types implicitly demand this.

Pros

Professional, hardworking, dedicated employees. Felt like I was around family when at work, everyone took care of each other, helping, assisting when necessary. You could walk up to anyone and ask them a question and get pointed in the right way.

Kontras

Low pay, low pay, low pay. Hard to retain highly talented individuals, let alone attract them in the first place.

Rat an das Management

Pay people what they are worth, start with industry minimums at least, then work from here to improve everything else.

Pros

Opportunity to see the world, new job every 2-3 years, work variety, partnerships with foreign law enforcement, good equipment, overtime opportunities, lots of smart coworkers from different backgrounds.

Kontras

Hard on the family, assignments process is political, very difficult to get to the good places in the world, not truly a law enforcement job in a sense that it's more program management based, weak focus on criminal investigations, management is not law enforcement oriented, hard on your health depending on where you're assigned, potentially very dangerous depending on where you're assigned. No career track focus... therefore you're a "ok" at a lot of things but not great at anything....

Rat an das Management

Change the assignments process - make it a lottery with exceptions for those with medical and family waivers. Don't allow people to lobby for jobs, too political. Let agents choose career tracks in either (1) Investigations (2) Protection or (3) Embassy Security Management. If you just let everyone do what they want to do in this agency, you will fill all the vacancies. There are plenty of people who want to... live downrange their whole career and sleep with an M4 under their beds, plenty who want to stay in the U.S. and do complex criminal investigations and plenty who want to do protection and travel all the time. Let agents pick one of these tracks and stick with it so you have a more competent (and satisfied) workforce.

Pros

No two days are EVER the same. Very rewarding work which provides a sense of accomplishment.

Kontras

The tendency of upper-level management to micro-manage programs.

Rat an das Management

Suggest "learning as much as possible" about programs and employees before making changes based on incorrect or misunderstood procedures, policies and plans.