Fast-Changing CIA Puts New Emphasis On Recruiting

At CIA headquarters, iPods are banned. So are cellphones.

"No personal media things," said Karen Mullet, the agency's chief of employee support.

Workplace restrictions like these are among the smaller sacrifices that CIA employees make on behalf of the nation's security. But a wave of new hires at the agency are very, very tech savvy and, it seems, not shy about their interests.

"They are pushing us to change in ways that, from a security perspective, we might not be ready to change," said Cindy Bower, the CIA's chief of human resources. "They want to use BlackBerrys, and they've got iPods they want to bring in and listen to music."

The new hires also are prodding the agency to improve its information technology systems. "They want it faster and better," said Michael J. Morell, associate deputy director and the No. 3 at the agency. "I think it is a very healthy thing."

Perhaps no federal agency is changing as rapidly as the CIA. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, shook up an intelligence community that had been downsizing since the end of the Cold War. Since then, recruitment and hiring have become a CIA priority.

Forty percent of the workforce has arrived since Sept. 11, 2001. Of the new hires, 60 percent are under age 30, and 85 percent are under 40. One in six have military experience.

"We are bringing in today more people than we ever have before," Morell said. The agency set a record for new hires in fiscal 2006 and is likely to come close to doing so again this year and again in fiscal 2008.

Today's CIA looks like "what we call a double-humped camel," Morell said. Most employees have been employed less than five years or more than 15 years, "and not much in that five- to 15-year period," he said.

Despite criticism and controversy in the months after Sept. 11 from Congress and outside investigators, the CIA has proved to be one of the most attractive parts of government for people interested in public service.

Last year, the agency received 134,000 résumés and is on pace to get 160,000 this year, Morell said. That's up from 39,000 to 63,000 a year before the terrorist attacks.

The CIA reviews every résumé, but cannot respond to every applicant. Morell and Mullet said the agency is working to change that.