Cybersecurity’s hiring spree requires a recruiting rethink

Widely reported shortages of trained cybersecurity professionals are driving the industry to try to come up with some with creative recruiting and training solutions. But it’s complicated.

At the very same time, automation is increasingly performing the tedious entry-level tasks that early-career threat hunters once built their chops working on, making it harder to gain early experience.

The result is demand for job openings requiring some previous cybersecurity experience over the past year grew 2.4 times faster than the rate of the rest of the economy, while only 65 cybersecurity professionals are in the workforce for every 100 available jobs, according to newly released research from CyberSeek and partners National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education at NIST, Lightcast, and ComTIA. Overall there were some 769,736 cybersecurity job openings listed over the 12-month period ending in September of this year.

“The CyberSeek data reaffirms the critical importance of feeder roles and thinking more creatively about on-ramps and career pathways,” Ron Culler, vice president cyber learning officer, CompTIA said about the cybersecurity employee recruitment study findings. “We see this trend continuing and are committed to ensuring that cybersecurity professionals are prepared for the current and future challenges this will bring.”

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