BUSINESS MEMO: THE 'ULTIMATE CAREER'

The magazine ad offers jobseekers "the ultimate international career," inviting applications from those with a college degree, an "adventurous spirit" and "a forceful personality."

"Do you have what it takes?" the advertisement asks in large type. More and more college graduates are deciding they do and signing up with the CIA. Although the exact numbers are classified, agency officials said job offers extended by the CIA increased by 57 percent in 1998 over the year before, and rose by 53 percent in 1999. About 70 percent of those offers were accepted, the agency said.

The increases mark a dramatic turnaround from just a few years ago, when the spy agency was rife with reports of low morale and organizational drift and was losing many of its top professionals to the private sector.