“Most folks that are applying to jobs in the intelligence community have kind of prepared themselves and their portfolios and lifestyles for such an application,” Lisa Maddox, who worked at the CIA from 2008 to 2018, told me. They’re shrewd enough either to be circumspect users of social media from the start or to review (and delete) old problematic tweets and posts. Plus, “the CIA is a pretty modern, savvy organization,” Maddox said. “They want and encourage most officers to have a social-media presence because, quite frankly, it’s a red flag and it looks strange if you don’t. You’ve got to blend in and look normal.” Actually, she speculated, “I would argue that some of the Gen Z–and-younger folks, their networks are so huge online, it’s almost a blessing. You can’t figure out who their close friends are because they’re friends with everybody. It almost negates the exposure.”
I am Gen-X and they used to send CIA and FBI recruiters into campus clubs before the internet was big. They would buy doughnuts and shit.
Some student organizations openly welcomed them like the language departments.