Post job
zippia ai icon

Automatically apply for jobs with Zippi

Upload your resume to get started.

Desk officer skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025
4 min read
Below we've compiled a list of the most critical desk officer skills. We ranked the top skills for desk officers based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 17.3% of desk officer resumes contained intelligence community as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a desk officer needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 desk officer skills for your resume and career

1. Intelligence Community

Here's how desk officers use intelligence community:
  • Collaborate with leadership within the National Intelligence Community for administration, policy coordination, and fiscal resource allocation.
  • Coordinated with members of the intelligence community to direct collection efforts and answer client requirements.

2. Government Agencies

Here's how desk officers use government agencies:
  • Analyzed intelligence and coordinated response operations with multiple government agencies and military assets.
  • Coordinated with different government agencies and non-government organizations for the monitoring of elections.

3. Policy Issues

Policy issues are key issues that influence the economic, social, and political life of a place where conflicts arise over the direction of government policy. Often the policy issues are general, dealing with broad approaches to problems, such as whether the federal government should increase spending on national defense or whether social security should be privatized in some fashion.

Here's how desk officers use policy issues:
  • Prepared documents on various policy issues and recommended policy actions to senior policy makers.
  • Served as Desk Officer for China and Taiwan defense policy issues, overseeing the US-China military to military exchange program.

4. National Security

Here's how desk officers use national security:
  • Participated in daily meetings with other intelligence personnel to coordinate war-fighter support and national security needs.
  • Liaised with National Security Agency; ensured organization and personnel were in compliance with nation directives.

5. HUMINT

Here's how desk officers use humint:
  • Supported Human Intelligence (HUMINT) efforts by enabling focused collection and analysis efforts to support the new mission offices.
  • Provided all the technical requirements to fill information gaps on HUMINT operations designed to support IC projects.

6. DOD

Definition of Done (DoD) is a set of deliverables that are needed to devise software. These deliverables are valuable to the system and can be exemplified by writing code, coding comments, unit testing, integration testing, design documents, release notes, and so on.

Here's how desk officers use dod:
  • Collected and disseminated 22 intelligence information reports ensuring DoD's top decision makers were kept informed.
  • Provided tailored Human Derived Information (HDI) targeting, operational support, and review of procedural compliance to DoD standards.

Choose from 10+ customizable desk officer resume templates

Build a professional desk officer resume in minutes. Our AI resume writing assistant will guide you through every step of the process, and you can choose from 10+ resume templates to create your desk officer resume.

7. Direct Support

Direct support is a one-on-one service that helps with daily life skills and tasks that strengthen one's independence. A direct support professional is responsible for a variety of tasks related to the general care of people with physical, cognitive, or developmental disabilities. The goal is to assist people to reach their full potential and to integrate and get engaged in their community.

Here's how desk officers use direct support:
  • Headquarter support of Afghanistan detachment, providing direct support to deployed Navy sailors.
  • Conducted CI technical operations in direct support of mission goals.

8. Law Enforcement

Law enforcement is the task of certain members of the community who work together to uphold the law by identifying, preventing, rehabilitating, or prosecuting others who break society's laws and norms. The phrase refers to the police, the judiciary, and the correctional system.

Here's how desk officers use law enforcement:
  • Collected, analyzed and evaluated data pertaining to financial crimes and disseminated it to the appropriate law enforcement and regulatory agencies.
  • Conduct training of new Watch Desk Officers at National Headquarters and the National Law Enforcement Control Center.

9. Equities

Here's how desk officers use equities:
  • Quoted market levels and executed trades in commodities and equities for the MBF overnight order desk.
  • Trade desk manager for a 10-member equities electronic trade support team.

10. AOR

Here's how desk officers use aor:
  • Monitored and directed counterintelligence collection, analysis, and production directly related to AOR.
  • Directed Security Cooperation Programs for six nations in the Africa/Jordan/ Egypt region of the CENTCOM AOR.

11. Foreign Policy

Here's how desk officers use foreign policy:
  • Program manager responsible for strategically planning, executing, and monitoring US Navy foreign policy.
  • Managed U.S. foreign policy relations with the government of Chile.

12. Situational Awareness

Situational awareness is one's perception of environmental aspects and events regarding space or time, the understanding of their meaning, and the prediction of their future status.

Here's how desk officers use situational awareness:
  • Support designated Federal Agencies with situational awareness and operational information as available and maintain close coordination in matters of Domestic Operations.
  • Presented weekly situational awareness updates to fusion cells and the Commanding General.

13. Incident Reports

An Incident Report, in a medical facility such as hospitals and nursing homes, is a type of paperwork filled out immediately after and in the case of an incident of some sort, with the goal of describing the incident and its consequences, as well as the measurements taken after or during the incident, as well as any other information relevant to said incident. Such an incident might be a patient acting out or a patient being injured.

Here's how desk officers use incident reports:
  • Recorded daily incident reports that occurred.
  • Write Incident Reports of all problems found.

14. Government Officials

Here's how desk officers use government officials:
  • Prepared correspondence and reports for government officials, volunteers, and general public.

15. USG

Here's how desk officers use usg:
  • Drafted policy and scenario papers, including policy recommendations, for senior level USG interagency discussions ahead of the elections.
  • Drafted functional specifications for acquiring commercially available or United States Government (USG) owned data communications capabilities for management review.
top-skills

What skills help Desk Officers find jobs?

Tell us what job you are looking for, we’ll show you what skills employers want.

List of desk officer skills to add to your resume

Desk officer skills

The most important skills for a desk officer resume and required skills for a desk officer to have include:

  • Intelligence Community
  • Government Agencies
  • Policy Issues
  • National Security
  • HUMINT
  • DOD
  • Direct Support
  • Law Enforcement
  • Equities
  • AOR
  • Foreign Policy
  • Situational Awareness
  • Incident Reports
  • Government Officials
  • USG
  • HQ
  • DHS
  • Operational Support
  • USAF
  • USAID
  • DIA
  • Federal Agencies
  • Front Desk
  • CDC
  • Security Cooperation
  • US Army
  • CCTV
  • Criminal Investigations
  • Intelligence Issues
  • Joint Operations
  • Ministry
  • JOC
  • PowerPoint
  • EMS
  • Safety Hazards
  • Police Reports
  • Office Equipment
  • EU
  • NOC
  • UK
  • NSA

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Research Team
Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Browse protective service jobs