In years gone by, potential recruits to the secret services would be approached with a quick flash of the old school tie, or a discreet chat in an Oxbridge junior common room.
The spymasters of today are resorting to very different tactics to sign up the next generation of spooks: GCHQ, the government's electronic eavesdropping service will this month become the first intelligence agency to post recruitment adverts in the virtual worlds of online computer games.
The advertisements will appear as billboards in the backgrounds of computer games such as Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent.
A spokeswoman for GCHQ - the surveillance branch of the intelligence service - said the agency was looking for recruits who were "computer-savvy, technologically able, quick thinking".
"We find increasingly we have to use less conventional means of attracting people ... to go beyond the glossy brochures and milk-round stalls," she told the Times.
The agency hopes to "plant the idea in the minds of younger players" of pursuing a career in the secret services.
"We will monitor the results from this campaign and are ready to change our recruitment methods. We know we can't stand still," the spokeswoman said.
The move into computer-game adverts is the latest sign that the security services are attempting to shift their recruitment practices away from the old-boy networks. Earlier this year, MI5, the security service, advertised for staff on the side of London buses.
GCHQ was consulted on its scheme, but the decision on where to place the adverts was made by its advertising agency, TMP Worldwide.
Kate Clemens, head of GCHQ digital strategy at TMP, said: "Online gaming allows GCHQ to target a captive audience. Gamers are loyal and receptive to innovative forms of advertising."
In recent years, Britain and the US have put increasing emphasis on "information warfare" in their efforts to confront terrorism and rogue states.
But thrill-seeking video gamers hoping to live out their Tom Clancy fantasies in the real world may well be disappointed by the reality.
GCHQ is the signals intelligence branch of the security services, and its main work is the interception and decryption of emails and phone calls. Most of the recruits will be software experts who will be put to work at the agency's main listening post at Cheltenham in Gloucestershire.
Source: Guardian