Secret Service Special Agents :Job Description, Education, Skills and Duties, Earnings and Outlook
Submitted by: paula
Job Overview Agents who are working so as to provide security and protection to the president and other political leaders of the United States, as well as to the heads of foreign governments or states while on visitation, are called secret service special agents. Secret service special agents are employees of the U.S Secret Service and are considered important members or part of the Department of Homeland Security. Among the 5,000 people employed by the U.S. Secret Service, almost half or approximately 2,100 of them are secret service agents.
Education, Knowledge and Trainings Required
The U.S Secret Service requires the applicant to be special agents at the GS-5 and GS-7 grade levels. The qualification at the GS-5 level involves taking or finishing a four year course in an accredited university, apply and take a working experience in a law enforcement or criminal investigative field, for at least three years. As for the GS-7 level, the qualification includes having a GPA of at least 2.95 on a 4.0 scale, meaning having a good or superior level academic rating, or going to a graduate school and taking courses in a directly related field, as well as gaining an extra year of professional working experience in a criminal and investigative work set up.
Skills and Abilities
Secret service special agents are required to have at least 20/60 vision in each eye, be physically fit and healthy. It is also preferred of them to be alert, smart, and upstanding citizens who will make a good and pleasant representation of the U.S government. Dedication, critical and investigatve skills, as well as endurance are other qualities that the government necessitates of its agents. Skills in the different protective and defensive tactics, and the use of weapons should be developed and updated all the time.
Duties
The primary task of a secret service special agent is to protect or ensure safety of the following people: the president of the state, the vice president of the state, the former presidents post ten years of end of their service, as well as their immediate families, children of former presidents before they reach 16 years of age, visiting foreign goverment heads, along with the family and the other officials travelling with them, official U.S. representatives on special missions abroad, and the major presidential and vice presidential candidates and their spouses, within 120 days of the general election.
In addition, they are also tasked to conduct investigation on conterfieting of the U.S. currency, and as such, they are allowed and licensed to carry and use firearms as their protective weapons, and execute warrants and do arrests to criminals and civilians responsible to felony. They conduct surveys of the site, and determine what level of protection in terms of the number of people, types of precautions and weapons to be used.Usually, there is a command post that is being set up to serve as a communication center for the planning and execution of the protective activities.
Earnings and Job Outlook
The average earnings of these special agents range from around 25,000 to 31,000 U.S. dollars per annum as their base pay. There is what we call the LEAP, ot the Law Enforcement Availability Pay, being given as their priviledge, on top of their base salary. Those who are in the GS-12 level may be receiving an income of around 55,360 U.S. dollars, and top senior executive agents may earn over 150,000 U.S.dollars in a year.
Paula Hiz is a researcher and a human resource specialist who helps newly graduates, job applicants and post graduate professionals be aware of their job opportunities and available trainings for skills and practice upgrading.
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Word Count: 615 Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2010 Time: 6:25 AM
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