In an effort to alter a widely-held perception that the nation’s premier intelligence agency is a white, Ivy League boys’ club, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has launched a new website to improve its reputation and attract new recruits from all walks of life.
The CIA debuted the rebranded website and logo with the hashtag #DiscoverCIA on Twitter. The full-scale rebranding campaign aims to attract a younger, more diverse talent pool and distance the organization from its “old boys club” image.
Infamous for having one of the least diverse workforces in the government, the agency now wants to ensure its workforce more closely reflects national demographics.
New opportunities are approaching. #DiscoverCIA pic.twitter.com/C5QWxXzI2Q
— CIA (@CIA) January 2, 2021
From Yale graduate President George H. W. Bush to Mike Pompeo, a Harvard Law graduate, the list of CIA directors from Ivy League schools is long. Women are also a minority in the organization, with just 39 percent representation compared to 61 percent men. Black Americans represent the largest minority at US intelligence agencies, comprising only 12 percent.
However, with thousands of job applicants pouring in every year, the CIA is now hoping to develop a more diverse, inclusive environment.
The Times They Are a-Changin’
Led by Gina Haspel, the first woman to lead the agency, along with more women heading the organization’s five branches, the days of all-male graduates from top-tier schools seem to be a thing of the past. Haspel, who joined the agency in 1985, hopes the new website will pique the interest of new talent and give them a sense of the “dynamic environment” that awaits them.
Since Haspel became director, recruitment has become a priority with the CIA, which is now advertising on streaming services and has also launched an Instagram account.
In an October op-ed written for The Miami Herald, Ilka Rodriguez-Diaz, a veteran of more than three decades with the agency, wrote “I didn’t think I fit the ‘profile.’ After all, the spies I saw on TV were male Anglo-Saxon Ivy leaguers, not Latinas from New Jersey.”