Skip to Main Content

FBI Agents

Experience, Skills, and Personality Traits

A bachelor’s degree, plus at least two years of full-time, professional work experience (or one year if one has earned an advanced degree), are required to become an FBI agent.

FBI agents assume grave responsibilities as a normal part of their jobs. Their reputation, integrity, and character must be above reproach, and they must be dependable and courageous. Agents must be able to accept continual challenges in their jobs, realizing that no two days of work assignments may be exactly alike. FBI agents need to be stable and personally secure and able to work daily with challenge, change, and danger. For most agents, the FBI is a lifelong career.

The FBI requires special agents to have the following core competencies: collaboration, communication, flexibility/adaptability, initiative, interpersonal ability, leadership, organizing/planning, and problem solving/judgment. Visit https://fbijobs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-05/Guide_CoreCompetencies_1.pdf for details about these competencies. 

Related Professions