Since its inception, the CIA and its staff have been the favorites of Hollywood novelists and filmmakers alike. They portray the image of CIA spies who are pompous, seductive, and extremely dangerous.
With such special individuals, surely the CIA has been spending a lot of effort and money to find and train them to become the staff they want? And does all the recruitment and training of an employee have to be done in secret to protect the CIA and its spies in the future?
Like everything in society, truth is far less appealing than fiction. Americans just need to turn on TV or YouTube to see advertisements for CIA recruitment. They made the very usual requirements: Graduate from college; no criminal record, know foreign languages; have work experience… Even the job application rate at this agency is not difficult at all: 1 to 17 people. Many prestigious universities have even higher competition rates. In many ways, the CIA recruits employees no different from private units outside of society.
The head of the CIA’s recruiting department at a job fair.
And like most private businesses, the selection of CIA employees begins while the prospective employee is still in school. Most CIA employees have interned at the agency while pursuing a bachelor’s or master’s degree. Their internships are nothing special and are organized to help these individuals learn about the CIA so they can make informed career decisions. Those who decide to choose the CIA will participate in a recruitment contest both to prove themselves and to find the most suitable position for them. The predecessor organization of the CIA, OSS (Strategic Intelligence Service) ) was established in 1942 to support the US Army’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. The key members of the OAS, however, were all Wall Street men. They are marketing experts; market analysis; public relations, etc. From these people, in the heart of the OSS and then the CIA formed a corporate culture. The CIA is run more like a corporation than a state agency.
Mary (false name), a CIA agent in charge of Southeast Asia, revealed in the newspaper on condition that her surname be kept secret, as follows: “I was born in a land of East Asia. For economic reasons, my family immigrated to America. Before graduating from Yale, I interned for a while at the CIA, and then got into the agency’s undercover spy training program. Since then, I have worked for the CIA for 20 years!” Currently, Mary holds the role of coordinating and analyzing spy information from Southeast Asia, a very important job within the CIA.
But what prompted a woman like Mary to enter the most secret and dangerous agency in the US government? “I watched a lot of spy movies when I was a kid, so I always wanted to become someone like James Bond or Jack Ryan …” – Mary confided – “Of course there are times when I get discouraged. During the training period, many nights I lost sleep because of the thought of giving up. But then the 9/11 terrorist incident happened and made all practitioners double their efforts!”
A rule that never goes wrong is that whenever the United States suffers a terrorist attack, the number of job applications sent to the CIA skyrockets. Former CIA director Michael Hayden said in an interview that in his last year in office, the number of applications that the CIA personnel department received reached 160,000, many of which were young people who wanted a job. dedication to the country.
Special cases
Of course there are positions at the CIA that not everyone can fill. In these cases, intelligence agencies have other methods to find the right person. For example, the special operations unit under the SAC (Special Operations Center) of the CIA. This is the most notorious paramilitary organization in the United States that specializes in missions such as assassinations, kidnappings, and coups. The US government does not acknowledge any of the actions of the SAC because under international law, a member of the special unit can be considered a war criminal.
CIA Director Gina Haspel has been stepping up the agency’s recruiting activities.
In other cases, some individuals did not even know they were recruited by the CIA. In Iran, no less than 30 top scientists were secretly brought to the US by the CIA in front of the country’s government. CIA agents will seek to approach these scientists with the promise of money, fame, and safety. SAC’s recruitment requirements are very strict. SAC needs people who not only have health and skills, but also possess loyalty to the country and superiors to the point that they are willing to die. Anyone who wants to take the entrance exam for SAC must first be an officer in one of the most elite special forces units of the US military: Delta Force, Ranger, SEAL, Green Beret, etc. They will have to go through. physical and, more importantly, mental tests to the limit. It has long been rumored that one of the most dangerous tests is… torturing candidates. Candidates will have to go through a series of tortures such as beatings; to choke on water, starve, etc. to be admitted.
And most importantly, the freedom to pursue whatever research project they want. Scientists who come to the US will receive all of this with one condition: work for the CIA as an analyst or consultant. Scientists don’t have much choice because they are in a strange land with their families behind them. On the contrary, it was through this recruitment method that the CIA received a wealth of valuable information and analysis on Iran’s nuclear development program.
Today the CIA has many different ways to reach young people. In addition to advertising in the mass media, they also have close ties with universities. CIA regularly sets up consulting desks in job fairs organized by Ivy League schools – Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, etc. CIA also regularly sponsors seminars and scientific projects. learn. Not only do they get useful research results, but in many cases they also find potential individuals for future recruitment.
The TV series Homeland portrays CIA agents as patriotic heroes.
Another recruitment channel used by the CIA is social media. The CIA has long used Facebook and Twitter to both inform and attract attention among young people. But they’ve had the most success with Instagram thanks to a creative approach. That is, the CIA’s Instagram page is flooded with pictures of famous actors and directors. Hollywood filmmakers who want to make films on the subject of espionage just need to contact the CIA directly to arrange to meet and interview leading experts in the industry. In contrast, always in the films they work as advisers, the CIA is also portrayed in the best way. They also use the fame of movie stars to attract attention from fans, mainly teenagers. Under director Gina Haspel, the CIA since 2018 has stepped up recruitment activities. graves through non-traditional channels. Just two months ago, the agency partnered with online video streaming channel Hulu to release a series of documentaries about inside the CIA. The main goal of the filmmakers is to instill in the audience a sense of patriotism along with the introduction of the benefits that CIA employees receive.
For psychologists, the CIA’s diversification of its recruitment channels was a strange move. Journalist Daniel Golden, author of the book “Spies School: How the CIA and FBI Recruit Students”, made this observation: “At the height of the Vietnam War, only If you need to hear that school leaders have ties to the CIA, students will immediately organize a protest. Professors and academia in general also say that the CIA is absolutely not allowed to interfere in the internal affairs of universities for the purpose of recruiting … In the last 20 years, the CIA’s search for employees has taken place publicly. announced at not only universities but also on mass media channels. No one would have thought that they would become public in such a short time!”
The CIA takes advantage of all approaches to recruiting.
On the other hand, CIA operations continued to expand. Their battlefield is no longer limited to the deserts of the Middle East or the jungles of South America, but has “expanded” all over the Internet. The two main tasks of the CIA’s electronic warfare division today are to prevent cyberattacks on key public facilities (power plants, water purification plants, etc.) and eliminate fake news. It takes an individual with a lot of skills at the same time to fulfill the two responsibilities mentioned above, so the CIA is forced to expand its search channels to fill its forces in the near future as well. like the future. Daniel also points out the key reason why the CIA ramps up its recruiting activities: The private sector! A good spy’s skills such as communication and information analysis can also make him successful in many private companies. The CIA has no choice but to compete with businesses, especially technology businesses in Silicon Valley.