The NSA is having trouble recruiting graduates in the wake of Snowden leaks

IT WAS once considered the dream job. But since they found out what they’d actually be expected to do, many university graduates aren’t so sure.

Supplied Editorial 140814Snowden

THE National Security Agency in the US is facing a new and unforeseen challenge in the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks and it’s a very unfamiliar problem for the intelligence agency.

The NSA suffered the biggest security breach in its history when former contractor Edward Snowden stole troves of classified data and leaked it to the press. The documents showed mass spying on US citizens. The public fallout from the revelations has tarnished the image of the agency, and is seriously affecting their ability to recruit college graduates.

Even with the highly patriotic nature of American society, many idealistic graduates are second guessing what otherwise looks like a dream job — despite what would likely be a $A100,000 starting salary.

A report by NPR radio details the difficulties faced by the agency as coveted minds like 22-year-old Daniel Swann, spurn the agency for other opportunities.

He is in his fourth year of a concurrent bachelor’s-master’s degree in cyber security at Johns Hopkins University and says the Snowden leaks have changed his opinion about working for the government agency.

“When I was a senior in high school I thought I would end up working for a defence contractor or the NSA itself. That was actually a big priority for me,” he told NPR. But after the revelations of domestic spying he says his mindset has “definitely taken a different turn ... partially for moral reasons.”

The NSA is in no danger of being understaffed but the sentiment expressed by Mr. Swann represents a genuine PR problem for the agency.

John Hopkins is a major US university but the information security institute at the college, which specialises in cyber security, will produce just five US born (a requirement to work at the NSA) master’s graduates this year. The NSA has 1600 positions to fill.

But while there is a push factor drawing young people away from the NSA, there is also a pull factor leading them to other organisations in the industry.

Snowden has become somewhat of a martyr to a younger generation of libertarians.

Ever since the leaks, which included the forced complicity of major tech companies, cyber security has been a big focus of silicon valley. In part, because users are becoming more concerned with their privacy. So now the NSA is seeing increased competition in the cyber security market from unlikely companies.

Neal Ziring, an NSA researcher occasionally goes to campuses to recruit and while he admits some students have been “turned off” from the Snowden leaks, he sees a bigger problem.

“I was at a Dartmouth career fair a few months ago,” he says, “and our table was right across from Facebook. And we are looking for some of the same things that they are,” he says.

This new crop of competitors is likely to hinder the NSA’s efforts as they don’t have the salary incentives of the likes of Facebook or Google. And it certainly doesn’t help that their biggest drawcard has lost some of its lustre.

Dear NSA: the best way to get me to work for you is if you send me a list of all the open problems you have classified solutions to.

— Jeremy Kun (@jeremyjkun) March 31, 2015

Matthew Green is a professor of computer science at John Hopkins, and believes the Snowden leaks have changed the way academia views the agency.

“We’ve learned that they’ve been collecting this incredible amount of information. And they’re not shy about doing whatever they have to do to get access to that information,” he told NPR.

He believes the Snowden leaks were a watershed moment for the industry and feels it’s important to teach his student’s about them. As Mr. Green admits he feels less friendly to the NSA nowadays, it’s not hard to see why students might also.

So for an agency that typically seeks to fly under the radar, they might just have to go on a charm offensive.