I decided to share tonight a little story.
Just a hypothetical of one of probably 1000 different ways the best and brightest are found.
I make no claims that this actually happened…
Just some speculative food for thought.
Imagine you got a greater than 1500 score on the SAT your senior year of high school.
Edit: pre-2006 when 1500 was HIGH & rare.
A week after high school ends, two suits show up at your door congratulating you on your SAT score. They inquire about your plans after high school etc. and invite you to take an entrance exam for some "really exciting job opportunity."
Maybe they never said "government" or "department of the navy" or whatever but they sure gave off a military vibe.
You show up 2 weeks later at your local community college on a Saturday at 10am. You take a seat among a couple dozen other recent high school grads, some from neighboring counties that also decided to show up…
Presumably they also scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT.
The man in the suit at the front of the room gets right down to the point. "You're all here to take an aptitude test. you have exactly 60 minutes to complete the test. Rarely does anyone finish before the allotted time, so if you don't, don't worry. Follow the directions closely. When you're done raise your hand and someone will come to you. You may begin now."
The instructions at the top of the page are as follows:
During this exam different areas of your reading and comprehension will be assessed. Only the top scoring candidates will be chosen. No rescheduling will be permitted. Today's exam will focus on four key areas. Time management. Aptitude and ability to focus. Knowledge of current events. Extracurricular competence. Time management is of particular importance. Exams are graded based on the questions attempted. Skip any questions you are not familiar with. Tell one of the exam administrators if you finish before the 60 minute time limit."
As everyone begins scribbling away as fast as they can bubbling in answers, you happen to notice something... coincidental?
...the first letter of every sentence coincidently spells out "DONT TAKE TEST."
You could care less about working for the navy/government or whoever tf these guys are so within 30 seconds of the test starting, you raise your hand. Immediately a polite yet intimidating man in a suit approaches from behind you, leans down and whispers, "have you finished?"
You nod in the affirmative.
You and your exam are taken to a different room.
The man sits across the table from you and takes a look at your fill-in-the-bubble answer sheet and then immediately looks up at you with a disappointed, bewildered-yet-intimidating look on his face and says "I thought you said you completed the test?"
You, intimidated and a bit embarrassed think to yourself 'Ahh fuck! Was it really just a coincidence!?'
You then proceed to explain to him what you noticed in the instructions and why you did not fill out a single answer.
His face immediately changes from a skeptical scowl to a proud grin and he says, "congratulations, you're the only one that passed."
Neat story eh?
Wow. I just had a funny thing happen to me. I was about to post a long explanatory essay on the hiring process of the various Alphabet agencies, having been recruited in the past (it was what I'll call a soft interview). They like to put feelers out there from time to time in certain military communities, usually to get an idea of a potential targeted hire, and usually because you've inadvertently worked with certain agencies that took a shine to you without your overt knowledge.
But, while I was typing it all out, my screen suddenly went blank and the browser I use on my phone immediately closed. When I came back to this post, what I had typed was gone. This is the first and only time something like that has ever happened to me, and I don't believe in coincidences, not when it comes to the spook type agencies. (high guys 👋)
So I'll say this instead, and will (unfortunately) keep it short:
It's a compelling story and a fun little scenario, but the hiring process isn't anything near what your story describes. Sorry to burst the fun bubble here, but I feel it's important to keep things in the proper context when dealing with or talking about the Alphabet Soup.
Yes, some people are recruited right out of high school or private/parochial schools, but those are very limited in numbers. Guys/Gals like Snowden, Zuckerberg and wife, Lex Friedman, Shapiro, etc. The (freakishly intelligent) genius level kids usually get spotted early on thru the various standardized tests used in Middle/High schools, STEM type summer camps, etc. Probably .01-.02% of H.S. graduates.
However, the rest are recruited in their Senior year of college thru the standard university job fair recruitment fairs. For the analyst positions, they get recruited and told to complete their Master's level program(s) and then go right into the hiring process.
For the field work type new hires, they either get hired from the military or after completing post-secondary university degree programs. The Tier 1-3 SOF and military Intel members are the most targeted for this type of work.
Unfortunately, I will have to cut this off here, as I believe it was my (probably overly detailed) explanation of this process that some govt spook lurker saw me posting in real time and decided to kill. I will include, though, that there are a lot of people recruited out of the military and civilian sector in ways that make them believe it was all their own ideas. (This is the "soft interview" process I mentioned earlier. I now know this is how they operate because it happened to me on more than one occasion, while on active duty and as a civilian.) More than half of all agency hires for field work come out of the military in this manner, as it takes people with certain abilities to do the field work required for the spook type agencies.) For obvious and not so obvious reasons I will not detail that process here, as I believe it was detailing that process that led to my first attempted reply getting killed. I will say, though, that if you follow certain people on social media, you'll be able to figure that process out fairly easily. Good luck with that, as it will invariably lead to you getting spotted on their radar (which kills the fun of being somewhat anonymous, right?), and maybe not in a good way. (As an aside, keep in mind that absolutely no one is digitally anonymous, not in the way it's commonly understood. Every digital device we use today reports directly back to either Google, Microsoft, or Apple, who then relays that digital info back to the Alphabet Agencies for their perusal. Doesn't matter if you use a VPN or so-called "secure" browser like Tor, you are still found and somewhere there's a file on you. Even "burner phones" are tracked and monitored. The only device I know of that doesn't do this is Erik Prince's phone that just came out, but they're expensive AF, and even then, I'm sure the Alphabet Soup is diligently working at finding a way to crack it. Just so everyone is in the same page here, if you download an app from Google Play or Apple's i-Store, even if it's Tor or a VPN, the U.S. govt (NSA/CIA/DIA/FBI) has the backdoor encryption keys for it. I know this because they wouldn't be allowed to be openly marketed and traded on government created communication lines, aka the internet. Unless you're a hacker and run your intent sessions thru dozens of securely linked proxies, and I mean 30+, you are tracked. This is how th NSA can comfortably and confidently claim "we have it all." So keep this in mind when you're on the web.)
So...that's where I'll leave it.
Edit: as always, don't just take my word for it on this, do your own research. There's plenty of info out there for you to find. Some, or most of you, won't believe me anyway, and that's fine. Doesn't matter to me. Just do your own research.
P.S. (Hello, gubmint shadow(s). Nice to see y'all are still doing your jobs of killing our fun around here. Fucking clowns. If you really feel the need to talk to me, y'all know where to find me.)
+1 Very thoughtful and thorough post. Thank you.
Completely agree with you about the 100% lack of anonymity. When I realized the likelihood of who actually runs this site it gave me the confidence to say that I got a 99 on the ASVAB because first and foremost anyone can say that but I'm quite confident they could check it and verify. Which would be quite embarrassing if I was lying. You did a great job illustrating some of their favorite things they look for, above average intelligence and military training.
Another that is not so obvious is if you do not appear in any high school or middle school yearbooks. The fact that 'they' knew this about me... (edit: it was alluded to).
I never did end up serving in the military. I wanted to be a sniper, they wanted me to be a pilot.