How to Be a Secret Agent

Building Spy Skills

Be charismatic. James Bond isn't a great secret agent because he was the strongest, sneakiest, or the smartest. What he lacks in traditional action-hero skills, he makes up for in his ability to adapt to himself to the situation and the setting. He oozes charisma. A great secret agent has to be able to charm complete strangers, manipulating them to do what you want. If your target is playing high-stakes poker in Morocco, you've got to be able chat your way past the doorman, ante up, and charm your way into the game. How do you do it? Charisma. To practice, work on getting phone numbers from strangers in public. Chat up people you don't know and work your way into their graces. Practice your witty one-offs, pithy comebacks, and all-around good-natured charm.

Spend time perfecting your acting skills with different kinds of people. Go places you might not be welcome and try to fit in and learn everything you can from the locals. Can you pretend to be a southern mill worker, struggling to make ends meet? Can you pretend to be a French-Canadian diplomat? What about a singer-songwriter from Belize? A good secret agent says yes. Learn about both high and low culture. If you've got to embed with French dignitaries who are operating illegal smuggling operations, you've got to be able to talk French wine and opera with the best of them. You also might be expected to sneak into an oil derrick and be comfortable next to hard-drinking roughnecks, which means you better know at least one George Jones song off the top of your head.

Learn to detect lies and learn to tell lies. If a secret agent gets caught by security guards at midnight hiding in the records room with a flashlight, he must come up with an excuse or an escape in the blink of an eye and make that lie believable. Likewise, if you're the one finding the suspicious behavior, you've got to be able to find the lie quickly and efficiently. Learning to detect lies can help make you a better liar as well. Watch body language. Liars tend to fold up, keeping their limbs in and their body away from others, symbolizing discomfort. People telling the truth will "spread out" more. Liars will avoid contractions, re-start sentences, and often repeat the question verbatim as a way of stalling and coming up with a suitable answer. To avoid the need for this, practice your excuse and your lie ahead of time so you won't have to stall and give yourself away. Relax when you're telling a lie. If you know you're going to have to tell a fib, calm down. Most lie detection occurs because someone gets agitated and anxious. If you're relaxed, your lie will seem more like truth.

Stay in shape and be athletic. A secret agent might need to scramble over barbed wire fences, hang precipitously from the landing gear of a helicopter, or sneak through the sewage system of Nestle. Or, you know, at least run really fast. If you want to hang tough in the espionage racket, get in shape and be physically fit for duty. Focus on cardio more than strength-building exercises. Most secret agents don't look like Schwarzenegger, but might need to run like an Olympic sprinter to get away from guard dogs, security guards, or other lackeys. The secret weapon of the secret agent might just be yoga. The ability to control your body, to twist and turn through narrow corridors and be all-around physically fit? Secret agent yoga fits the bill.

Learn to fight. If things break down, a good secret agent needs to be able to throw down in a fight. You don't want to end up being captured and interrogated by your targets in the back of some shadowy warehouse, and you won't need to worry about it if you can defend yourself with your fists and feet. To fight properly jump on the balls of your feet and have a hand guarding your solar plexus (chest) and one on front of you ready to punch. When someone comes at you either dodge or block. If you are a beginner, try to dodge and block while moving so if you can't do one you will hopefully stop the kick/punch thanks to the other (or both). If you want to know in full detail how to fight, try out Taekwondo, Aikido, Judo or Karate. Hit with your second knuckle, not your third. You ideally want to strike with the point of your first two knuckles, driving them into the middle of your opponent's face (the nose and eyes) or solar plexus. Punch straight and punch hard.

Learn to speak many different languages. If you're going to go undercover all over the world, you've got to be comfortable speaking the language of your assignment. This is especially true for corporate espionage, and true for select locations in official government agencies, mostly places experiencing turmoil in which agents may be embedded. In-demand languages for secret agents include: Arabic Farsi Russian Mandarin Pashto

Learn to read lips. One of the most important languages and skills for a young secret agent to learn is the skill of reading body language. Learning to identify information someone's giving up even when they don't realize it is an essential skill for the secret agent. You can practice this at home by watching a DVD on mute with the subtitles on to get used to the mouth shapes. Then turn the subtitles off and see if you can interpret what the characters are saying. Go to coffee shops and other public places and practice your eavesdropping skills.

Joining an Intelligence Organization

Get an advanced degree in business, foreign languages, or law enforcement. There's no such thing as an uneducated secret agent. Secret agents don't just sign up straight out of high school, or get plucked from obscurity for their surveillance skills. For most government agencies that employ field agents, at least a bachelor's degree is required and an advanced degree preferred. Field agents have degrees in all sorts of fields, but language skills, international and policy law, and business administration are all sought-out in particular. You need to study something that will have you involved with global politics. Military experience is also valuable. In the US, you might try to get an internship with the CIA as a student. Competitive intern programs are available for students studying foreign policy or law enforcement, and the agency tends to hire from this pool of applicants in the long run. If you hope to embed as an undercover agent in the future, this can be an excellent stepping stone.

Fill out an application with a governmental intelligence agency. To make your secret agent status official, it's likely that you'll need to get a job working for your government in a covert capacity. While there are many different careers available with organizations like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States, covert agents are typically involved in what is called "Clandestine Service." The application is available on the CIA website, found here. To fill out the application, you'll need to create an account, then search for job openings within the agency. Questions about your background, your education, and your familiarity with foreign policy will be included on the application. You'll also typically need to agree to a background check and go in for a polygraph examination before moving forward with the process.

Submit to a background check. To work as a secret agency, you need to have an exceedingly clean record. If you have any felony arrests, or even misdemeanors, your application will likely be flagged and discarded before you even have an opportunity to prove yourself as a reliable agent. There will likely be several hundred applicants for any given job opening, so this is especially critical if you want to succeed. To give yourself the best possibility of being accepted, stay out of trouble. A polygraph test will be administered to check the accuracy of your claims, and a drug screen will also probably be a part of any application, so you'll also need to stay away from illegal substances and be sober. Any psychological issues, legal issues, or interpersonal quirks can keep you from getting the job. It's a tough gig. We're talking about the CIA, here, so it's likely that they'll be able to do some deep research. If you called in a bomb threat when you were a senior in high school as a prank, but never got caught, expect something from your past to be brought up in the meeting. No slip-ups.

Streamline your life. If you're lucky enough to be one of the few who work in some capacity for a governmental agency, congratulations! But now the real work begins. It's likely that you'll have to uproot your life on a regular basis, moving around between countries, always on call. Are you up for the challenge? try to keep a minimum amount of possessions and live a relatively spartan existence. Don't keep anything around that you're not willing to walk out on in a minute flat, if trouble comes calling. Excess connections and responsibilities can be a liability. Make your job your life. You're a secret agent, after all! Being a spy can make interpersonal and romantic relationships very difficult. It's likely that you won't even be able to tell your friends and family about what you do for a living. Will they be ok with this? Will you?

Consider making yourself available for industrial or corporate espionage. There are more than one kind of secret agent, so if you have a less than clean record but a good set of espionage skills, you might consider getting into corporate espionage, working for a large corporation to spy on other corporations and report back. If you don't work for the government, it might be a good idea to start working as a private investigator to build up a reputation as a reliable sneaker and spying agent. This resume can make you attractive to corporations who might want to learn the secrets of their competition. Corporate espionage, while not strictly speaking illegal, can get you into a lot of trouble if you sign a non-disclosure agreement. Likely, you'll need to work as a double-agent, working for two different companies at once and reporting back to the other about what's going on.

Going Undercover

Learn about the cultures and political climate of the places you'll be embedded. Once you find out where you're going to be stationed and what you're going to be looking for, collecting, or attempting to facilitate, it's critical that you learn everything you can about the political climate that you'll be wandering into. If you're going to the United Arab Emirates to spy on an oil tycoon, you'll need to treat that job very differently than if you're going to South Florida to work your way in with a militant group. Study the contemporary landscape as well as the deep history. Learn about the people and the culture, trying to get a sense of the zeitgeist of the people who live there. What makes them tick? How are they different than you? Learn the geography as well. If you're in Iraq and you need to know how long it takes to get from Baghdad to Kuwait and back before nightfall, you don't want to be messing around on an iPhone trying to figure it out.

Get a good cover story and make local contacts. It's likely that you'll be set up with a new fake identity when you're going into the field. Maybe you're going to be a fruit executive working for Dole in Southeast Asia, scouting possible locations for a new operation. The general sketch will be provided, but the specific details of your life will need to be teased out by you. Treat it like an actor would. Your life may depend on it. Any details that you include about yourself that might be borrowed from your own life could lead potential enemies into digging a little deeper into your history and finding out the truth. For most jobs, you'll need to find someone to vouch for you and help you get familiar with the local customs, who may or may not know your status as a secret agent. If they do, it's also a good idea to do as much as possible to make your own contacts and work your way into the local landscape.

Get to know your target. Keep your enemy close. For the most part, you won't be spying on your targets from a distance, looking through binoculars at shadowy deals going down. You'll be meeting with them face-to-face, swiping their hard drive and making a clean get-away. For this reason, it's absolutely critical that you work your way into your target's good graces. Learn everything you can about their habits, their likes, and their dislikes. If you find out the general who's dealing dope on the side has a taste for high-end single-malt Scotch, all it might take to get an invitation to dinner is a bottle of Laphroaig. If you're working on tailing a target, keep your distance and plan a good escape if things go awry. Getting caught while following a target on a grocery-run isn't doing anyone any good.

Blend in. If you want to spy, you should blend in with crowds and communities so it seem like you belong. If you're spying on a location, have a good reason to be there. Wear common clothing for the location, which is not easily identifiable. Avoid attracting attention. Take your time before you start getting into your shadowy doings. For most jobs, you'll be expected not to do anything daring or fancy anyway. You'll mostly just be hanging out and "keeping an eye on things." Don't rush into things and make a mess of the situation. Hang back and treat learning to blend in as your primary goal.

Stay aware of your surroundings at all times. Don't get too comfortable. Learn to think on your feet and be resourceful in any kind of situation. Try to practice new, useful ways to use items you carry with you, or replace them with other ones that cover a broader range of useful functionality. Here's a wide range of skills that might come in handy as a secret agent: fix an engine throw a knife repair a radio unlock handcuffs

Gather intelligence. Keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary, anything that shakes up the routine of your target, your location, or the situation. Even if you're not sure why, it's probably important to get back in touch with the agency back home and report what's going on and what your suspicions are about the targets. Use your gut instincts and work hard to hone your intuition while you're in the field. In your entire career, it's likely that you'll never catch someone on a wiretap saying, "We're going to bring in the cocaine tomorrow at noon." Criminals aren't stupid, and you've got to learn to look for patterns in behavior and "read" the people you're trailing to learn what it is you want to know.

Get the hardware and software of the pros. Spy and Surveillance gadgets can be essential to the job, and it's likely you'll end up using high-tech equipment as your eyes and ears. Bugs are as small as a microchip these days, and you'll likely be briefed on how to use them before you go into the field. Depending on the nature of your assignment, you might have to set aside a considerable amount of time to monitor these surveillance media, as well, so get ready for a lot of long hours sitting by and listening to static, or listening to the CEO of the weapons complex talk about horses with his concubine.

Prepare a "go" bag. A good secret agent always has a bag with essentials packed up around so in case of emergency is ready to take. Include a type of survival kit, all weather clothing, and an emergency transponder in case you need to disappear into the night to escape your enemies, but the good guys need to know where to find you.