CIA Recruit Prospective Intelligence Agents Through Streaming Services

JAKARTA - Intelligence activities should be secret. However, the United States Defense and Intelligence Service (CIA) openly broadcasts advertisements on streaming broadcast services in America seeking new recruits. The advertisement mentions the age range 18-35 years old to be able to join the CIA.

"It only takes one new thing ... from foreign intelligence ... and everything can change quickly," said a CIA member to the recruits in the classroom as shown in the video footage. The broadcast by the CIA, Monday, June 22.

"Start a career in the CIA and serve more countries than you can ever dream of," said the CIA operative in the style of Hollywood films.

The job video was also posted on the CIA's YouTube account on June 21.

Reported by Reuters, CIA spokesperson Nicole de Haay said this recruitment pattern was carried out because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He added that the CIA usually recruits new recruits from students through traditional methods, such as job fairs.

He said the ad had been cut to 90 seconds, 60 seconds and 15 seconds in duration so that it could be broadcast on news, entertainment and lifestyle streaming services in the US. This is because more than 70 percent of the US population subscribes to at least one streaming service provider such as Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime.

"To find the best recruiting candidates, we cannot rely solely on traditional recruitment methods," said de Haay.

In her remarks at Auburn University last year, CIA Director Gina Haspel said that her agency had recruited the best members since the last 10 years and that she intended to make her institution the preferred government agency for all US citizens.

De Hayy said that although the CIA targets young people aged 18-35 years, all potential applicants will be considered.

Several other intelligence agencies that partnered with the CIA, such as MI5 and MI6 in the UK, usually recruited new recruits through the recommendation channel, but recently these agencies have begun recruiting new recruits via cyberspace.