An overseas uni Singkie grad was applying for jobs - lost count of the jobs he applied for but received an email inviting him for an interview for a role related to his field. A company name accompanied the email so he being abit of a sotong thought we would wing it.
He turns up at a hotel, is shown to a meeting room and is placed in front of a panel of 3 Aussies. He is quite stumped but as the questions progressed he realised it was not a job he had applied but his name had been forwarded for consideration for a sensitive government role. This was a preliminary screening/meeting.
He answered the various questions and the left once the questions were concluded.
He then gets a call and is told that he has made it past the preliminary stage and he was to be invited for a second interview at another hotel. He turns up, meets the caller and sits down for another interview/screening session. He is told that the organisation had all the details of his past including all his misdemeanours but they were still interested. He was told that the role would be in the field and that he would not be able to contact his family at all - any contact would be through his handler only. He would undergo training but once in the field he would be on his own - if he was apprehended, any contact with the authorities would be denied and he would pretty left to fend for himself.
At this point in time the guy is quite desperate for any job and he was seriously weighing up severing family ties for the sake of the role and a pension.
Then he had to undergo a psych evaluation - and he could not bring himself to lie even though he knew that telling the truth would probably rule him out. He told the truth, finished the test and left.
He received a call soon after and was told that they would not take it forward because he did not display the qualities needed for the role when he provided his answers in the psych test.
That was the last contact he had and when he tried to call the various phone numbers (which he had been subsequently given throughout the "interview" process, all the numbers were disconnected).
He still wanders whether he made the right choice - he was unwilling to compromise his personal values for the sake of the role and will never know what it would have been really like.
Another graduate from Oxford, British national from an immigrant family applies to MI5 - he goes through 8 - 9 rounds of interviews and various tests. They are immensely interested because of his intelligence and linguistic skills. Just after he finished the 9th interview, he applied for a scholarship for another course at Oxford, just as a back-up in case he did not land the MI5 gig - he received a call a couple of weeks later and told that they could no longer consider him because he had not told them about his scholarship application. The sentiment was that he could not be trusted absolutely as they had told him from the very beginning that he had to share everything with them. He went on to work for a major oil and gas company but still wanders what it would have been like working for MI5.
I guess there is a little James Bond intrigue in the spy game.
