MI5 Launches Cringey Campaign to Humanize Spies Amid Recruitment Shortfall
11:54 GMT 31.12.2023 (Updated: 12:36 GMT 31.12.2023)
© AP Photo / LEFTERIS PITARAKIS
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The number of vacancies for careers in the military and the intelligence services has soared in many Western countries in recent years as authorities face growing difficulties convincing disillusioned Millennials and Gen Z-ers that the ideals of “defending freedom and democracy” across the globe are anything more than empty mantras.
Britain’s main domestic counter-intelligence and security agency is trying out a new approach to recruitment, attempting to humanize its employees by painting them as ordinary people with commonplace lives, ambitions, and goals in a bid to boost recruitment.
“MI5 has cleverly taken bits and pieces of the careers of some of its staff, without identifying them, to demonstrate to potential recruits that many of their spies come from very ordinary backgrounds which should prove attractive to anyone considering a career as a spy,” former intelligence officer Phil Ingram said of the campaign, which involves posting background details of staff on the spy agency’s social media.
“The latest MI5 recruiting program is another example of how much effort they are putting in to demystify the service and show how they need people from all walks of life and backgrounds. This level of openness is completely unprecedented and very exciting, and would have been scoffed at only a few years ago. However, it is good for the service and for potential recruits and seems to be part of a more open approach being taken by the head of MI5, Ken McCallum,” Ingram said.
MI5’s social media campaign assures would-be recruits that its employees come from all sorts of backgrounds, from an athlete dreaming of taking part in the Olympics but settling for a job as a spy, to a skateboarder inspired by popular portrayals of intelligence agents and dreaming about fighting the “bad guys and saving the day,” to an ordinary travel agent joining to fight terrorism.
“One day I saw an advert for an admin assistant role at MI5. I knew nothing about the organization other than it had a building across the river from MI6 [Britain’s foreign intelligence service, ed.] – but thought I would give it a go and here I am,” the former athlete said. “I’ve had a great career so far and working on our Instagram* account has been fantastic. I can honestly say I love it at MI5. There’s a wide range of career options and for my next role I’ll probably look to go back to doing something operational. I may not have swum at the Olympics but MI5 has given me a chance to represent my country every day.”
“The little I knew about MI5 was based on the TV series Spooks where people single-handedly saved London by getting into scrapes. The reality is quite different, but what I do recognize is the quiet satisfaction of making an unseen difference,” the former travel agent, who now purportedly works as an investigator running “operations into terrorist and state threats,” said.
The skateboarder recalled that she wasn’t sure whether she’d be a right fit for the MI5, but said she was glad she applied, because she could continue her hobby. “The mistaken idea that I might need to give up skateboarding almost stopped me applying but the girl who wanted to help save the day wasn’t going to be put off that easily. I joined as an admin assistant and now I work supporting agent handlers out and about in the UK,” she said. “I’ve met people from all walks of life and lots of them aren’t what I thought MI5 would be like. There isn’t one MI5 ‘profile,’ and I’ve even found other skateboarders here.”
The British domestic intelligence service’s attempt at a fresh, hip approach to recruitment is a move away from tactics of decades past, which included recruiting agents from the nation’s top schools and the military.
The campaign comes amid growing competition for qualified candidates from the private security sector, which offers higher pay.
MI5’s idea is the latest among efforts by the UK’s intelligence services and the military to replenish their numbers amid dwindling public interest in working for the security services, with other recent measures including a relaxation of rules allowing for the recruitment of spies with foreign parents, to efforts to recruit more women and minorities, to a search for agents from among former police officers.
Militaries and intelligence services across the Western world have faced growing difficulty attracting warm bodies in recent years, with potential recruits among young people showing growing hesitation, not only for monetary reasons, but moral and ideological concerns, after being demoralized by the West’s attempt to serve as the world’s policeman over the past three decades.
Officials and lawmakers in the West have sought to tackle the issue in a variety of radical ways, from proposing giving citizenship to illegal immigrants willing to serve in America’s foreign wars, to the CIA promoting a disastrously cringey “woke” ad in 2021 which sparked a tidal wave of ridicule and derision online.
* Meta’s Facebook and Instagram are banned in Russia for extremism.
