While there clearly are more cybersecurity jobs than there are applicants to fill them, the industry suffers less from a lack of talent than from a lack of creativity in hiring, Fredrick “Flee” Lee writes for VentureBeat. He is CISO of small-business platform Gusto. The industry needs to ditch its “dark arts,” “cloak and dagger,” “lone wolf” mentality and make itself open and appealing to a more diverse pool of potential workers, according to Lee. That approach might include becoming more active at job fairs, developing mentorship programs or hosting intra-departmental information sessions.
Lee cites recent studies showing that the cybersecurity industry is 89% male, 93% older than 29 and less than one-third from underrepresented groups. He cautions against focusing on “unicorn” candidates with a slew of sought-after technical qualifications. “Security wins when it’s multi-disciplinary and when we hire people from varied backgrounds,” Lee writes.
Ultimately, according to Lee, if the cybersecurity industry can lose barriers to entry, look at what a candidate could become rather than what certifications they have and rethink the interviewing as well as recruitment process, the hiring squeeze can be overcome. “Cybersecurity doesn’t have a skills shortage,” he writes. “We have a culture problem that manifests in the ways we source and recruit talent.”
Whatever the solution, the hiring shortfall is real. The U.S. cybersecurity employment must increase by 62% to meet demand, according to a recent report by the nonprofit training group (ISC)². Some of those jobs are, of course, getting filled. The UK cybersecurity workforce grew by 37% over the past two years, according to a new report by the British government (PDF).
New York City, for its part, is betting a number of those employment opportunities will end up in Manhattan. The mayor’s office has trumpeted the launch of the New York Cyber Center, a 40,000-square-foot cybersecurity startup hub in SoHo, Crain’s New York Business reports. “This is where the biggest customers are,” says James Patchett, CEO of the New York City Economic Development Corp.