Video Transcript

Question: So, why did you apply to be a forensic accountant for the FBI?

Rachel: Yeah. So, I actually took a forensic accounting class in college, and I loved it. I've always been interested in, like, true crime stories, and I loved accounting, so it's kind of a nice merge between both.

Question: And what interested you and the FBI whenever you applied? What were the things that jumped out to you?

Rachel: Honestly, what jumped out to me is I would get to work really interesting cases and projects. I'm really passionate about what I do. I think that I have a real knack of being able to help people in my role, and I love that, working with the Bureau.

Question: And what was the application process like? Was it intimidating? Was it easy to, you know, did the recruiter help you? What does that look like?

Rachel: Yeah, so, actually when I took that forensic accounting class, I had my professor reach out, and I worked directly with the forensic accounting supervisor. And those of you who are interested in applying can do that. Now we have a KC Accounting—KCForensicAccounting@fbi.gov—email address, and you can reach out directly to our supervisor, Lori.

We're all super friendly, and if you send us your application and your interest will direct you on next steps. But HR will go through and approve applications, and then those who are approved get interviews. If you pass the interview stage, then you go on to a background and conditional offer.

Question: So, what does a typical day for an FBI forensic accountant look like? I mean, is it just numbers, ones and zeroes, or?

Rachel: There's totally more to it. So, no two days are the same. That's what I love to say about my job. Some days I'm calculating losses for an embezzlement or a Ponzi scheme. The next day I'm helping on interviews. Maybe I'm working through drug payments in the interviews, anything like that, I can help with. So, yeah, it's a huge variety of things that we can do.

Question: So what types of investigations do forensic accounts work on? Is it just white-collar?

Rachel: No, definitely not. Every violation that the FBI has, we have forensic accountants that can assist on those cases. As we all know, finances are kind of important, regardless of the violation. So, anything that touches finances, we can help out on. So, we have forensic accountants on crimes against children, human trafficking, the joint Terrorism Task force, and so many more.

Question: Why are forensic accounting positions important to the FBI's mission? Why do you get up every morning and come to this job?

Rachel: Yeah. I like to say that the FBI is really team-centric. Like, we are all about case teams. You're always working in a team, and we're a valuable member of that team. We get called as expert witnesses to support and trials. We help out our case agents by being the ones with our CPA or CFE background and we're calculating loss amounts for them. So, it's just a huge team environment, and we're really crucial to the team.

Question: You mentioned a little bit, but what are some of the, you know, day to day things that translate from a forensic accountant to everyday work? I mean, you talked about, you know, testifying in trial and looking through records and doing auditing and things like that. Explain some of those things that a traditional accountant may see that are similar to working with the FBI or maybe something that's slightly different as well.

Rachel: Okay. So, before being a forensic accountant, I was an auditor. So, sometimes people are tax accountants before they come to be a forensic accountant. And similarities that I've found is that there's been several times in like I'm doing basically an internal control walkthrough, which is auditor 101 where we'll walk through with clients and figure out where controls are in place.

And I do that a lot of times with our victims to see where our subject could have exploited some weaknesses and where I think the fraud could be and start doing my investigations that way. So, there's a lot of similarities. I know our tax accountants, when they come in, they're really helpful for us in knowing whether or not IRS needs to be called in on an investigation. I'm not up to date on tax code, so I rely on our tax accountants to to help be like, hey, I think this looks like IRS should go, but maybe not.

Question: You talked about investigating or identifying where the fraud is. How would that manifest in like a terrorism case or, you know, a I don't know, a violent crime case?

Rachel: So, violent crime, some of the ways that I've seen us be really helpful is we work directly with banking partners a lot. So, sometimes maybe we have a suspicion that this guy has robbed a bank. And next thing I know, banks are starting to put in reports of, like, okay, like, there's some weird cash movements coming in so we can help out with those.

We can also help when it comes to terrorism. A lot of terrorism charges revolve around money. We have material support to terrorism, and that's providing any financial support from the U.S. to a terrorist group abroad. And I help all the time with things like that of tracing funds going abroad.

Question: What do you enjoy most about being a forensic accountant for the FBI?

Rachel: I love the work-life balance. It's fantastic. Especially considering other accounting firms that I've worked at before. The Bureau is just such a different culture in some ways. We currently right now have, like, three wellness hours we can use a week to exercise, meditate, read, whatever you want, and it's just fantastic that that's part of my 40-hour work week.

Secondly, I love what I do. The cases are so interesting. I'm always being challenged with like a new puzzle of like, oh, what happened here? It's a very complex financial puzzle I get to solve every day at work.

Question: Absolutely. And then talk a little bit, if you don't mind, about, you know, when you talk about that work life-balance. Do you still have time, you know, to have a life outside of work?

Rachel: Yeah, it's actually really nice. I've never been asked to work overtime here at the Bureau. I volunteered a few times just because I get paid more. And that's kind of fun, but I've never been asked to work overtime. I've always worked solid 40-hour weeks. It's very nice when it comes to work life balance.

Question: What is the application process like? Or if you're an interested forensic accountant, what would be the next steps?

Rachel: Mmhmm. First step would be to email us at KCForensicAccounting@fbi.gov, and you'll talk directly to my supervisor, Lori, and we'll process your application and point you in the right direction to get everything submitted. And if you're approved for an interview, we'll do the interview. And if you make it past the interview, we will then offer you a conditional job offer and then do a background.

Question: Is this a rewarding career?

Rachel: Yes, very much so. Like I always tell people, one of my favorite things I've done so far is work with asset forfeiture. And a lot of times when we get fraud victims, they think that it's there's nothing they can do. It's all anything that they've lost is completely gone. And sometimes through asset forfeiture, we're able to get something back and it's really rewarding to call someone and be like, hey, you know, I thought you lost that, but we actually got some of it back. So, it's very rewarding to do things like that.