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evening sitdown
Your Evening Longread: What it's like to apply to become a spy
We bring you an interesting longread each evening to take your mind off the news.
EVERY WEEK, WE bring you a round-up of the best longreads of the past seven days in Sitdown Sunday.
And now, every weeknight, we bring you an evening longread to enjoy which will help you to escape the news cycle.
We’ll be keeping an eye on new longreads and digging back into the archives for some classics.
Emma Hughes had a job she didn’t like and wanted more out of life when she applied to become an MI5 agent. At first, she loved the long process – but then a meeting with a stranger shook her.
(The Guardian, approx 5 mins reading time)
The next few months were a blur of exams and interviews in anonymous London buildings, none of which – for obvious reasons – I was allowed to discuss with anyone. From a distance it seemed like any other graduate recruitment process, but of course it wasn’t. MI5 employees have to be totally open about every aspect of their lives, to protect them against being blackmailed. I was asked about my sexual preferences and for the names of all the people I had ever slept with, and had to hand over bank statements. At one interview, a lock of my hair was cut off to test it for drugs.
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