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Women in the UK Intelligence Community

work, then they will lose an entire sector of their workforce: not
only will this result in a ‘skewed’ balance in the organisation,
but they will lose the investment they have made in such
individuals.
• Finally, we examined career and promotion prospects for
women: traditional appraisal systems can carry an inherent
bias, but there are other ways in which the Agencies can
nurture the talented women they have.

Recruitment policy and practice
Best practice
case study
‘Women are great
spies. We save the
world and we pick
up the children’.
(The Times, 31 March 2014)

As an example of positive
advertising to encourage
more women to join the
intelligence Agencies,
the interview with a
female member of SIS
in March 2014 stands
out. It helps to dispel the
“stereotypical macho,
lone ranger image of spies
as portrayed by James
Bond”.10 The interviewee
points out the qualities
required of a good
intelligence officer and
why women can be very
suited to the work.
Recruitment campaigns
have to evolve to
challenge the norms,
particularly those
surrounding the seemingly
male-dominated
intelligence world. We
should encourage the
use of more positive role
models to break down
the stereotypes that
have been established
and reinforced by the
entertainment industry.

15. Over recent years, the Agencies have reviewed their recruitment

campaigns in an attempt to increase the diversity of applicants and in
particular to target women applicants. This should be commended.
Recruiting a diverse workforce is absolutely key: if women are not
applying to the Agencies in the first place, then any subsequent actions
to increase the gender diversity of organisations cannot succeed.
16. Use of women role models. The use of women role models,

and scenarios to which women can relate, is now more prevalent in
the Agencies’ recruitment literature. MI5 is using what the organisation
refers to as ‘gender attraction strategies’. For example, to coincide
with the launch of its graduate recruitment campaign in 2013, MI5
launched a video on its website which showed the working life of a
female intelligence officer with a focus on work–life balance. The ‘day
in the life’ area of the website also includes the (anonymised) career
stories of two senior MI5 women. The success of this approach was
confirmed by many of the new recruits who attended our meetings,
who said that they initially responded to adverts because of the
presence of women role models.
17. Use of focus groups. In the case of SIS, the Service ran a series
of focus groups that targeted different demographics, including
women, and then used the outputs from these to inform and shape a
recruitment campaign for Intelligence Officers. A decision to employ
alternative communication channels to reach out to potential women
recruits was a result of this input.
18. Advice from women’s networks. In all three Agencies, staff

representing the women’s networks were given the opportunity to
comment on the recruitment material prior to it going live. We would
encourage this, particularly in the early part of any planning for a
recruitment campaign. Not only is it a ‘free’ source of feedback, but
their own staff will know best what will attract the kind of people the
organisation wants.
19. Reaching out in new ways. There is some recognition from
within the Agencies of the need to reach out to women in new
ways, and to move away from the more traditional mechanisms
for recruitment. We should make clear that it has been a long time
10

The Times, ‘Women are great spies. We save the world and we pick up the children’,
31 March 2014.

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