Ex-bankers sign up as real-life James Bonds
The financial crisis has proved fertile ground for the British Secret Intelligence Service, with some well-travelled and well-heeled individuals turning away from banking in favour of serving their country.
Despite the pay cut, the service is able to play on its James Bond image of glamour and sophistication and offers the opportunity to travel to far-flung destinations in its intelligence-gathering role.
MI6's head of recruitment, who likes to be known simply as "John," said there had been "a lot of people in the city applying to join us" in the past 18 months.
Other professions seeking to join the spy game include doctors, lawyers and workers for non-governmental organizations. "John" said even former radicals could be recruited. He added: "If they can convincingly show over a period of time they had renounced their previous views, then I would be prepared to consider them."
But he said: "A persistent record of working against the legislation of the U.K. government will disbar you from becoming a member of SIS."
However, such a move is controversial in the wake of a suicide bomb attack by a Jordanian extremist that killed seven CIA officers in Afghanistan at the end of last year.
Humam Khalil al-Balawi, who was working as a double agent for the Taliban, had pretended to renounce extremism and been recruited to spy on militants.
MI6 has been infiltrated by double agents before, most notoriously by Kim Philby, one of the Cambridge spies.
MI6 prefers to remain "unseen and unheard," says "John," but the days of a discreet tap on the shoulder from a don at Oxford or Cambridge are gone and the current recruits have attended over 30 different universities.
MI6 is looking for academic high-flyers, with a top university degree, who are well-traveled, have a broad understanding of other cultures and are well-read.
The service is keen to attract more women -- just over a third of fast-stream operational officers are female.
It is also seeking members of ethnic minorities, particularly speakers of languages such as Dari, Pashto, Urdu and Farsi, to serve in and analise Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
The agency also wants those who can speak Mandarin to cover China, Korean to deal with the threat from North Korea, and those with knowledge of Russian and Arabic.
"John" said: "We are not targeting any specific community. We aspire to represent the U.K. in its fullness and complete diversity."
Individuals with engineering and IT skills are also sought after as MI6 seeks to harness cutting-edge technology and the Internet.
Referring to the James Bond image, "John" said: "Every so often, there is a gentle approximation between what we see on the screen and what we end up doing."
But he added: "We don't disappear for a month on some sort of personal crusade and there are no Aston Martins in the garage."
The officer, who is in his late 40s and was born abroad, said MI6 had changed enormously in the last 20 years but it was unlikely that the agency would emerge from the shadows just yet.
"It would be a massive cultural shift if we were to adopt a more open posture," he said.
Sir John Sawers was recently appointed as the new chief of MI6, known as "C."
The former career diplomat is expected to bring changes.
His predecessor, Sir John Scarlett, said last year the James Bond image of spies with a "licence to kill" was a long way from reality.
"You need to have a very clear sense because you need to be thinking all the time what is right, what is wrong," he said.
H/T Intel Daily
Banker`s and Spooks.....God help us!
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