CIA Hosts Recruitment Event on Campus

Central Intelligence Agency analysts conducted a case simulation for 30 students at the Center for Government and International Studies as part of a recruitment event Wednesday.

As part of International Relations week, organized by the International Relations Council student organization and sponsored by Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the case simulation brought five analysts from the CIA, including Fran P. Moore, former Director of Intelligence at the CIA. 30 students selected by random lottery participated in the three-hour recruitment event.

Eliza J. DeCubellis ’17, executive director of International Relations Week who organized the simulation, said a personal relationship enabled the event.

“This kind of just fell into my lap,” DeCubellis said. “I met with [Moore] because she was a friend of a family friend. I was only thinking of her individually, but then she mentioned this CIA simulation, which they use for recruitment.”

In Wednesday’s simulation, the 30 participants read a fictitious case, created a policy of recommendation in groups, and then debriefed the five CIA analysts. The fabricated case, “Arctic Simulation,” concerned an imaginary explosion of an oil and gas company in the Arctic that set off aggression by Russia and conflict between other countries with territorial claims in the Arctic, such as the United States, Denmark, and Canada.

Members of the analyst team from the CIA estimated that they conduct 25 to 35 of these case simulations at colleges nationwide each year. Approximately a quarter to a third of simulation participants apply for a job at the CIA, according to agency estimates.