The Company doesn't exactly encourage recruits to advertise their new position. You mostly see people just vanish for a while. Young recruitment is largely done through direct faculty recommendations at schools, so it's more of a "don't find us, we'll find you" proposition.
Yup. I had a friend who spent some time there. Easily the smartest kid in my major. Hired due to a direct referral from faculty. It gets scary, once you see how many math professors have security clearances.
> It gets scary, once you see how many math professors have security clearances.
Makes sense, though. The people who are the best at math are going to be the people who are the best at grokking and expanding upon the existing understanding of the math involved in cryptography.
Yeah, my mom majored in math and minored in Russian. She got the NSA offer in her last semester. But she wanted to teach, and thought the whole thing was more than a little spooky. And indeed, it was a faculty referral that prompted the interview offer.
Exactly, a good friend of mine in college was recommended for a job at the NSA by one of my professors in early 2001. He went to having a heavy online presence and being a constant in our social circles to completely disappearing. His personal site went dormant, he stopped showing up on irc, abruptly dumped his long time girlfriend. My roommate bumped into the guy at a grocery store in Virginia but other than that he doesn't exist to anyone who knew him for years or online.
