3 Steps to Hiring Cybersecurity Talent and Protecting Your Business
It’s getting tougher to hire experienced and qualified cybersecurity staff. It’s a candidate market as organizations try to gear up against increasingly sophisticated and active cybercriminals and internal threats.
A survey by the Information Systems Security Association and Enterprise Strategy Group found that 57% of respondents report that a shortage of cybersecurity skills has impacted their organization.
Why You Cannot Neglect Cybersecurity Staffing
Because of the difficulty in hiring, some firms are trying to survive with their current cybersecurity staffing levels. This is a dangerous strategy.
As more people work remotely and more businesses move to cloud-based storage and infrastructure, many networks and data security elements have become more complex.
Cybersecurity expertise is required by more of an organization’s employees. Specific cloud-based computing skills are needed to maintain the security of cloud databases. All this while cybercrime is exploding:
- 68% of business leaders believe that cybersecurity risks are increasing
- Security breaches have increased by 67% since 2014
- Ransomware attacks increased by more than 140% between the third quarter of 2020 and the third quarter of 2021
Cybersecurity professionals in under-staffed teams are feeling the impact.
Increased workloads are damaging work/life balances, and almost 4-in-10 have reported feeling burned out.
The next move for these overworked and undervalued professionals? To look for new jobs, thus worsening their current employer’s cybersecurity capability even further.
3 Steps to Hire the Cybersecurity Staff You Need
While hiring talented cybersecurity employees is challenging, it is possible. What is needed is a strategic approach, which we have boiled down to three steps:
Step #1: Identify the Gaps in Your Cybersecurity
It’s crucial to understand your vulnerabilities within your IT infrastructure and your cybersecurity team.
The gaps you identify will help to inform your best hiring strategy. Do you need specific skills for short-term security work, or should you hire talent to stay ahead of the curve for the longer term?
When we collaborate with clients, the first stage of our work is discovery and intelligence. It’s the foundation on which a successful cybersecurity strategy is built.
Step #2: Identify What the New Hire Will Be Doing
It’s crucial to hire the right people to augment your cybersecurity capabilities. Once you have identified the gaps that need plugging, you will be able to identify the new hire’s skills and the duties and tasks they will be expected to perform.
Here’s a list of the most common skills required for cybersecurity professionals:
- Cloud Security experience
- Software security knowledge
- Security analysis
- Network monitoring
- Security engineering
- Security administration
- Intrusion detection
- Security project management
- Threat intelligence analysis
- Risk analysis
- Risk management
- Endpoint security management
- Penetration testing
You should dive deeply into what you need from your new hire, including how often these skills are likely to be used. This will help you identify the most crucial skills for a candidate to have. For example, some of the above skills may be used daily, while your new hire may never need others.
The skills that hiring companies are most commonly asking for in candidates are:
- Cloud Security experience
- Software security knowledge
- Development languages
- Automation skills
- Security administration
- Risk analysis and management
Another question that this deep dive will help you to answer is if a cybersecurity consultancy service would deliver what you need, providing the expertise required without the expense of boosting your existing cybersecurity team and offering continuity of service.
Step #3: Use Laser-Focused Candidate Targeting to Hire the Person You Need
Now comes the most challenging piece of the process. You know exactly who you need to hire into your cybersecurity staff. You just don’t know their name yet.
Don’t immediately jump on an external recruitment site like Monster or Indeed to find your candidate. You won’t find the quality you need.
A structured search and reach-out on LinkedIn is much more productive ─ if you know what you are doing, but this still takes time. (Our team researches potential candidates using LinkedIn, and we have developed a network of passive candidates over many years.)
You can also use your network to extend your reach and set up an internal employee referral program. And talking about working internally, have you considered your existing staff? Is there anyone in your organization who could be trained in the role?
Finally, the one place you must look is here at Tiro Security. We provide a unique service, utilizing our network, industry, credibility, and ten years of just cyber security staffing to help you find the people you need. Check out our Featured Candidates. These are highly qualified and experienced cybersecurity professionals who we are currently working with on their passive searches but be quick as they go quickly.
And if you can’t find your ideal candidate within this list, contact Tiro Security. Let’s talk about your cybersecurity needs and ensure that you have the cybersecurity staff to protect your business.