MI6 to shed James Bond image and recruit more women and minorities
MI6 is seeking to cast off its macho James Bond image in an attempt to bring more women and ethnic minority recruits into the Secret Intelligence Service.
While Britain’s most famous fictional spy may be renowned for his high speed driving and his handiness with a Walther PPK, the agency’s first television advertising campaign highlights the “soft” skills it is looking for in new entrants.
The opening shot could come straight from a Bond movie, with a shark gliding menacingly through the blue waters of an aquarium. It then cuts to a child who steps back in momentary alarm before turning to his mother who sweeps him up smiling in her arms. The voice over says: “We are intelligence officers but we don’t do what you think. It is not keeping your cool in the shark tank, it is picking up the silent cues that matter.”
It ends: “MI6 - secretly we are just like you.”
At a briefing for journalists at MI6 headquarters, the agency’s head of recruitment, herself a mother with 20 years in the service, said the advertisement deliberately sought to subvert the Bond image.
“The concept was to play on the Bond image but to explain very clearly that this was not James Bond,” she said. “In many respects the people we are recruiting have sets of skills that are common to many people in the population. MI6 can take advantage of this Bond image and then turn it on its head.”
She said they were looking for new intelligence officers who had a “blend of emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills” combined with a “strong sense of integrity and creativity”.
The agency is looking to recruit 800 new staff by 2021. It has seen an upsurge in interest since the Salisbury nerve agent attack on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. However MI6 chief Alex Younger said it was essential they were able to continue to attract the very best candidates, including women and members of the black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities who previously might not have considered applying.