You know years ago I heard a recruitment ad for the CIA on the radio, and that caught me a little off guard, I always kind of assumed the CIA personally reached out to specific candidates and hired through shady back channels and such and didn’t really do open recruitment.
I guess it makes sense though, for every James Bond type super spy there’s probably a hundred different random office staff, IT guys, clerks, mailroom guys, secretaries, janitors, accountants, etc. who handle boring day-to-day operational stuff and rarely or never get to see any of the crazy spy craft stuff happening.
And I guess once you land one of those jobs, maybe you can get your foot in the door for eventual promotion to International Man of Mystery.