Common Challenges of Recruiting Cyber Security Experts and Alternative Solutions

Information security is one of the most important departments in every company regardless of the product or service it offers. Recruiting Cyber Security Experts could be hard. Thus, if you’re planning to hire IT employees, you should be aware of the challenges you might face. By reading this article, you can find out the difficulties during IT staffing and how to avoid them easily.

Finding the Right Person for the Task

There are numerous roles for information security staff. So, if you want to find the right fit for your company, you should think about your needs first. Some of the roles of cyber security experts are application security, vulnerability management, security architecture, incident response, threat intelligence, data loss prevention, network security, and forensics. The solution for this challenge is to determine your company’s requirements and act based on them.

Examining the Resumes

Since cyber security is a relatively new field, it might be challenging to decide on the required degrees. For instance, while some companies require a university degree, some of them ask for experience and certificates. Based on the complexity of the job, you should determine what degree you want to see in a candidate’s resume.

Deciding on Working Types

Cyber security experts might work in different types, such as full-time, shift work, and freelancing. While all of them have their own perks, you should consider the workforce you need in the office. A full-time working information security expert is always more beneficial for a company’s data protection needs. Because these employees have a better view of your company’s working style and workflow.

Determining the Job Description

As mentioned, the role of information security experts varies remarkably. Thus, based on the extent of the staff, you should determine whether the candidate has a generalized or specialized job description. Since the skills of experts are interchangeable, making a decision beforehand can be tough from time to time. However, it is also an advantage. Because an employee may accomplish more goals than he has to.

Investigating the Soft Skills

While a resume can demonstrate the candidate’s hard skills, it can be inadequate in showing the soft skills. However, having soft skills, like teamwork, leadership, communicative skills, flexibility, problem-solving, adaptability, and interpersonal skills, is also equally important. So, during the interview, you should also question the candidate’s soft skills. You must remember that these soft skills are the keys for the staff to work more efficiently.

Questioning the Curiosity

Another skill that every cyber security expert needs to have is curiosity. Information security is a constantly evolving field. Thus, to stay up-to-date, experts must keep up with the developments. You should ask the candidate the way he or she follows the developments and how he improves his skills. After hiring, you can arrange regular employee training and encourage your employees to attend information security events by giving out tickets.

The flexibility of the Candidate

During staffing an information security expert, you should also question the flexibility and persistence of the candidate. To prevent data breaches, cyber security experts might work for long hours. By informing the candidates about this matter and learning whether they are okay with this, you can overcome this challenge during staffing. In addition, if the candidate keeps suggesting automized solutions for this kind of situation, this is a bad sign for flexibility.

Conclusion

Staffing a cyber security expert might be challenging in some aspects. That’s why before this procedure, you should be conscious of the obstacles you might experience. By recognizing the challenges and their solutions, you can recruit the expert you are looking for. Since cyber security is a wide field with many branches, researching this subject matters.

Most of the difficulties can be overcome by understanding your company’s needs. If you decide on the hard and soft skills you are looking for in a cyber security expert, you can staff more efficiently. However, you should also be flexible during staffing. You should be aware that you may not find the perfect fit for the job opening. However, you should prioritize your demands and act based on them. In addition, you should ask for the opinions of your current IT staff. By learning their needs and requirements, you can get a more solid perspective on staffing an information security expert.

FAQ

• How to fight against workforce shortage in the information security department?

Because of the increased and improved cyber attacks, the unfilled cyber security job openings increase over the years. By offering a well-defined job description and hiring if necessary, this workforce shortage can be overcome. However, hiring staff that has hard and soft skills required is the key to accomplishing that.

• What is the method for solving the problems during staffing an information security expert?

To overcome your staffing problems, you must be aware of your company’s security needs. By investigating the current data protection system, consulting with the experts, and preparing a comprehensive report, you can discover the skills you seek in an expert.

• What are the appropriate questions during the interview?

While there are various challenges during staffing an information security expert, you can defeat them by asking the right questions. While the resume shows you the hard skills of the candidate, you can find out about the soft skills by questioning them. Also, you should ask about the experiences of the candidate, and ask him to tell them in detail.

• How to support your employees to upskill their talents?

After hiring well-qualified cybersecurity experts, you should also encourage them to improve their skills. Because cyber security is a field that develops constantly. By supporting the employees to attend more events, and read more, you can accomplish this goal.

References: Southern New Hampshire University, The Balance Careers, SmallBizDaily, Software Advice and CSO.