The increase in the online presence of businesses has drastically amplified cybersecurity challenges. Therefore, cybersecurity has become important for every organization operating digitally. It includes processes to protect networks, systems, and programs from cyberattacks or cyber theft.
According to Statista, around 15 million cyberattacks and data breaches were experienced by users across the globe.
Accenture State of Cybersecurity Resilience Report further explains that small businesses suffer 43% of total cyberattacks, yet only 14% are prepared to protect their systems.
The state of cybersecurity within an organization is crucial to protect the information of the company, its employees, and its customers. Unfortunately, the information of billions of people is compromised by cyberattacks, and a skilled cybersecurity professional can help reduce these threats.
For this reason, hiring a qualified and experienced cybersecurity professional is imperative for organizational growth and market reputation. This blog will discuss various aspects of cybersecurity recruitment, such as challenges in hiring and tips for optimum recruitment.
When cybersecurity professionals start their careers, they work as support technicians or helpdesk engineers. However, with a few years of experience, cybersecurity professionals can be hired for the following roles:
These professionals focus on identifying system vulnerabilities, risk assessment, and creating secure software.
The professionals in this role concentrate on protecting the company’s sensitive and crucial information. They also design methods and policies that help monitor data, eliminate cyberattacks, and ensure compliance.
The role requires cybersecurity professionals to find system vulnerabilities and offer solutions that protect organizational information. It includes designing software and hardware for security systems.
These cybersecurity professionals identify and investigate cybercrimes to find hackers.
These cybersecurity professionals find threats in systems to understand methods attackers can use to breach security.
While these courses provide theoretical and academic knowledge, practical experience is gained by patiently developing cybersecurity skills over the years. Hence, the cybersecurity professional’s experience is often considered a marker of their knowledge.
Accenture State of Cybersecurity Report explains that cyberattacks have increased by 31% per company. Another study by International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC) says that the need for cybersecurity professionals has reached 4.7 million, with a shortage of around 3.4 million professionals in this industry.
As a result, hiring managers face the following challenges in cybersecurity recruitment:
Organizations have a budget for hiring, which becomes a bottleneck in cybersecurity recruitment when onboarding experienced candidates.
Finding candidates without experience through college placements or other sources is easier for entry-level positions. However, advanced-level positions require money for hiring and better employee compensation.
When there’s a mismatch in the budget for hiring and employee expectations, it becomes a challenge for the recruitment team.
Mercer | Mettl’s Cyber Security Assessment measures the capability of a professional in security basics, encoding skills, OWASP/OSSTMM concepts, and CORS concepts. You can shortlist candidate profiles according to your budget and candidate experience to ensure hiring efficiency.
Hiring managers may pick candidates with the best work qualifications, educational background, and certifications. These guidelines are necessary to ensure the foundational skills and knowledge of the candidate.
However, evaluating candidates solely on qualifications may decrease your pool of potential employees. Some candidates with appropriate graduate and master’s degrees may be equally knowledgeable in the field. Using Cyber Security Assessment from Mercer | Mettl can help you overcome this barrier. With an initial test, you can easily shortlist candidates who may fit the job role correctly.
When job descriptions do not offer insights into the specific job role, you may receive applications from several candidates who may not fit the criteria. Therefore, job descriptions should be clearly framed after understanding the company’s requirements, education qualifications, and other factors.
Utilize the knowledge of a senior cybersecurity leader in the organization who can help clarify role requirements.
This gap in requirement and supply is due to challenges faced during cybersecurity recruitment. These seven tips can be used for successful hiring in cybersecurity teams.
Before proceeding with hiring, companies must understand their cybersecurity recruitment needs. For example, what technologies do you use, what industry guidelines do you follow, what time is the team spending on cybersecurity, how big is your cybersecurity team, how do you implement changes in cybersecurity, etc.?
Hiring managers can receive clarity on job role specifications by involving a senior member of the cybersecurity team. An in-house expert or someone in a related job role is better equipped to aid your recruitment process.
For instance, this professional can evaluate the job description and modify it according to the company’s specific needs. Then, they can further join one of the technical interviews to know if any candidate has the required skills and experience.
HR managers should know the domain and related skills when hiring a cybersecurity professional. This knowledge helps find correct cybersecurity assessments for candidate evaluation. Hence, recruiters should improve their domain understanding with in-house professionals’ expertise.
For instance, cybersecurity threat investigation, cloud security management, artificial intelligence, IoT, and blockchain are some in-demand skills in the cybersecurity landscape.
Understanding which domain expertise is necessary for which job role helps in efficient cybersecurity recruitment.
After identifying imperative skills for the role and business requirements, recruiting managers can utilize assessments to shortlist candidates. Tests on cybersecurity risk management, vulnerability assessment, threat management, security governance, network security, and penetration testing are beneficial to evaluate a candidate’s talent and foundational understanding of cybersecurity concepts.
Mercer | Mettl’s Cyber Security Assessment evaluates candidates across several competencies, such as data governance, information security, IT security, and cybersecurity. As a result, hiring managers can gain a holistic view of candidates’ hands-on skills in multi-factor authentication, logic bombs, sniffer attack, firewall security, malware practices, and many more. Additionally, you can customize these assessments as per business requirements. Therefore, you can change the difficulty level, request a custom test, include questions prepared by your team, and combine different tests.
Engaging young talent may help you find enthusiastic and motivated individuals for entry-level or mid-level positions. Even within the organization, it is possible to create seasoned professionals with appropriate upskilling opportunities. For example, recruiters can create a training and mentoring program for technical employees with the basic knowledge and willingness to move to a cybersecurity role.
The company can also engage young talent from job portals and social media channels to hire academically sound professionals. These professionals can move to full-time roles in cybersecurity teams with short-term training.
Recruiting managers should consider beyond a degree or certification for cybersecurity recruitment. There are many talented security and IT professionals with the required skills and proficiency. However, they are not hired due to degree requirements and stringent guidelines.
It is logical to utilize assessments and hackathons to determine competitive and driven candidates. For example, Mercer | Mettl’s Online Hackathons assess candidates’ coding proficiency, innovative skills, and problem-solving acumen. These assessments include coding hackathons, innovative ideathons, and case study competitions to help you hire the best cybersecurity talent.
The cybersecurity team is central to many functions within the company. Therefore, these professionals must communicate with the IT team, employees, stakeholders, etc. With appropriate communication skills, it becomes easy to explain issues to colleagues.
For example, the security team has launched new security guidelines within the company. These guidelines can only be implemented with appropriate peer support. Therefore, the cybersecurity professional needs to train employees on correct security measures as in the guidelines.
Excellent communication skills improve collaboration, encouraging organizational employees to report cyber threats and resolve security-related doubts comfortably.
Hiring managers should create a long-term goal to generate a talent pipeline. Start partnering with colleges and universities to attract young talent. Provide growth opportunities, flourishing career paths, and future security to talented students.
Additionally, organizations can conduct sponsored events and hackathons and offer internships to identify cybersecurity talent and hire them. This method also helps create diversity in the workplace because women and other diverse groups receive equal opportunities.
As hiring managers continue to create a talent pipeline, they should additionally encourage existing employees willing to change careers to grasp these opportunities. Identify internal talent and focus on grooming these people for advanced positions. This will help reduce cybersecurity recruitment hassle and cost in the future.
Cybersecurity is a competitive landscape with consistently rising demand and low supply. Hence, organizations should re-evaluate their existing hiring method, modify processes according to new standards, and create a constant talent pipeline. Improving the engagement of young talent and internal employees willing to change careers additionally reduces the cost and time spent on cybersecurity recruitment.
Mercer | Mettl’s assessments can aid your recruitment process. Technical Tests can help you evaluate the skills of cybersecurity candidates, and Online Hackathons can allow attracting fresh talent from colleges and universities. Skills Gap Analysis can further aid identification of the organization’s reskilling and hiring recruits. Utilize these assessments to decrease time spent on talent acquisition, reduce recruitment costs, and ensure optimum cybersecurity hiring.
Originally published November 28 2022, Updated November 28 2022
The primary objectives of recruitment and selection are to ensure high-quality candidates who are culturally fit and work toward shared organizational goals and vision.
Hire and upskill your tech team with an automated programming platform
Know More
Predict fitment and on-the-job performance with a powerful suite of pre-employment tests
Know More
Hire the best coders with coding assessments and simulators
Know More
Thanks for submitting the comment. We’ll post the comment once its verified.
Behavioral Competencies
Cognitive Competencies
Coding Competencies
Domain Competencies
Would you like to comment?