National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

Application

I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (Washington, DC).

Interview

It was long. 5 hours long.

For one, they flew me from St. Louis to their home-base in Virginia. This caused me to have to take off 2 days of work, with such little notice, it of course required lying to my current employer - which is never something you want to do if you are uncertain of a job. They pay for the flight right off the bat and then they will reimburse you for your hotel and rental car at a later date - it took almost a month.

The interview itself was broken into 5 parts:
1. Introduction to the NGA! You get to watch a few slides explaining what the NGA is and does (all unclassified, of course) and you get to ask a member of senior management some questions after they explain their journey to the NGA with you.

This next part sees you broken up into two groups - my group was broken down into essentially men and women - most of the men (and one woman) went in one group, while the women (and two men) were in another - still not sure if this was done intentionally or not.

The following was my order:

2. Group exercise. We were herded into a room where four people with clipboards and one very enthusiastic dude introduced us to the group experiment - kind of. We went around, introduced ourselves to each other and watched the people with the clipboards write things down - nerve inducing. Our group exercise, was a stack of pictures. You are NOT allowed to look at each others pictures. You are supposed to figure out what they are/represent and figure out what to do with them. The answer is they are a "Zoom in" photos, you need to figure out who has the furthest out and furthest in and where everyone else goes in between. My group did very well.

3. The Tour. This is where they make you very jealous of the facility. You get to see the facade, and nothing more. The building was expensive - which should some up the tour for you.

4. Interview # 1 - This is where they ask you personal questions - "How have you handled" - "How would you handle", etc. They give you a piece of laminated paper that you read the 6 - 10 questions off of and are then given 10 minutes to answer them...except the interviewers insist on reading the questions to you - even though you just read them - cutting into your time. So be aware that they will do that.

5. Interview #2 - The "Technical Brief" and the technical questions. The best advice I can give to you on the technical brief is to choose something you are passionate about that has ANYTHING to do with national security. The very first question after you give you "5 minute brief" is why you CHOSE that topic. They will go into detail asking about the brief. So don't choose something because you think it might impress them.

Interview Questions