One of Singapore’s most secretive intelligence agencies has launched a public drive to recruit more mid-career professionals such as economists, lawyers and bankers. The Security and Intelligence Division (SID) — which is under the Ministry of Defence (Mindef) — launched a website to heighten the public’s awareness of the job opportunities available in its department.
SID, whose work is shrouded in secrecy due to security reasons, hopes the new recruits can challenge existing norms and play the devil’s advocate as threats such as cyber attacks and climate change continually evolve.
Established in 1966, SID provides intelligence and assessments to Singapore government agencies, supports discussions on key strategic issues and analyses global developments that could affect Singapore’s security and national interests, Mindef said in a statement.
These include areas ranging from geopolitics, terrorism and cyber security, to other transnational threats. A senior director of the division, Michael (not his real name), said that SID is looking to recruit mid-career workers from the private sector as it foresees new challenges on the horizon such as climate change, as well as future “black swan” events like Covid-19.
“You cannot just rely on your present talent to work at this. You need people with different perspectives, people to challenge the norms of what the current thinking is,” said Michael, who could not reveal his identity due to security reasons. Should the organisation fail to recruit those with fresh perspectives, it may go into “groupthink”, he said, and that will not be ideal as the role of the SID is to advise and help the Government.
“We do encourage within our organisation that sense of tension, that creative tension that we have that will probably push us to do better assessments. But you can only get that if you bring in people who have very different perspectives from you.”
There are five types of roles that SID offers, according to its website:
Research officer: Produce intelligence assessments on the latest geopolitical developments and threats to Singapore
Operations officer: Seek timely and “actionable” information on threats to Singapore’s security and interests
Technology officer: Build and deploy technical tools, products and platforms to meet SID’s mission requirements
International partnerships officer: Help provide SID with global reach for information, insights and innovation
Corporate officer: Manage, coordinate and steward SID’s resources effectively
Asked if the skills in private-sector roles are transferable to those offered by SID, Michael gave several examples of how they can add value to the organisation.
For instance, SID needs economists as they are able to “make sense of economic numbers that will have political implications”, he said. For lawyers, they are able to provide the organisation with advice on what legal boundaries SID can operate within. He added that there was also an ex-banker who had joined SID and gave the division a “better understanding of financial systems, that we probably wouldn’t have had if we didn’t bring in someone like that”.
