How does a secret organistaion that no one has heard of, recruit for a role most people don't know exists?

Simple. They invite the whole world to a job interview. But not just any job interview. "The Most Interesting Job Interview", a mental obstacle course that gave anyone the chance to learn about ASIS, while proving they have what it takes to work there.

The interview utilised a mix of video, audio and interactive 3D elements to take candidates through a series of challenges that were based the psychological traits of an ideal intelligence officer: including empathy, facial recognition, perceptiveness and lateral thinking.

It might have only been a simulation, but the interview's outcome had real world implications. After completion, high performing candidates were given a unique code that they could use to inform ASIS recruiters of their results.

Our PR campaign launched with the Minister For Foreign Affairs and Trade, Julie Bishop, announcing the online interview in a televised morning show. Several TV personalities even took the test themselves. It’s no secret to say that none of them should quit their day jobs.

Of course, not all of our target audience watch television. So we also supplied press releases and assets to relevant radio stations, tech websites, blogs and influencers, as well as running a paid partnership with a major newspaper that saw sponsored articles run in the foreign affairs sections of online newspapers.

What we didn't plan for was for coverage of The Most Interesting Interview to stretch as far as Germany, France, Spain and CBS New York. It turned out that it wasn't just Australian's that wanted to try their luck and see if they had the skills to work in espionage.

Tier 1. The Most Interesting Interview generated well over $2 million dollars of earned media. It appeared as a segment on all 4 of Australia's major TV networks, including both major morning shows (Sunrise and The Today Show), as well as primetime demonstration on The Project – one of nation's leading youth focused news and current affairs programs. It was also a topic of drive radio, as well as featuring in countless online news articles. All of this was achieved with a PR budget of effectively $0 (plus one very charismatic Minister).

From a messaging and tone perspective, almost all of the conversation around The Most Interesting Interview was focused around the skills required for espionage, rather than speculating about ASIS's workings or specific operations. This was a massive positive, as avoiding any unsavory or negative commentary about ASIS was a clear objective of the PR plan.

Tier 3. For national security reasons, the total number of ASIS recruits directly attributable to The Most Interesting Interview cannot be shared publicly, in any forum. However we can say that over 400,000 Australians have taken the interview to date, with a select few progressing to the next stage of the process.

Compared to other secret intelligence organisations like the MI6 and the CIA, The Australian Secret Intelligence service had almost no public profile.

By creating The Most Interesting Job Interview website, we were able to utilise earned PR to introduce ASIS organisation to the world, and in the process, solve one of its major challenges: recruitment. But we were able to do it in a way focused less on ASIS's secrets, and more on what it takes to work there.

For the majority people, their understanding of what it takes to work in espionage comes from an unreliable source. Hollywood.

But in reality, the people ASIS actually want to employ don’t drive Aston Martins, have chiseled physiques or action movie reflexes. Sure, they have to be smart and charming, but they also need to have extremely high levels empathy and emotional intelligence. They're also diverse, reflecting the need to blend into to different cultures in order to perform overseas intelligence gathering operations.

Knowing we were looking for a few, highly capable people in a very large country, our strategy was to cast the net wide. We set our target on mass market news media, who we knew would be hungry for information on ASIS, and decided to control the story by giving them a simple headline.

"Australia's Secret Intelligence Service want to invite you to a job interview".

For most brands, being invisible would be present significant business problem. But for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, being invisible IS their business.

While secrecy is important from an operational standpoint, there is one aspect of the ASIS organisation that has been impacted by a lack of public awareness: recruitment.

Our brief from ASIS was to help them recruit diverse and intelligent Australians to work as Intelligence Officers – a demanding role that requires extraordinary levels of emotional intelligence, charisma and courage. But of course, its hard enough to recruit people to any role. Let alone to a role they don't know exists.

We therefore had three objectives.

-To educate the world about ASIS without exposing any classified information.

-Encourage a new audience of Australians to apply for the role of Intelligence Officer

-To actively filter out inappropriate candidates