Hiring Skilled IT Security Employees: What Can We Do Better?

According to recent studies, it's been incredibly difficult in the last few years to find qualified candidates to fill security-related IT positions across the board. Part of this is because demand is too great (particularly in the United States), and part is due to a general lack of interest among a certain segment of the population - creating a perfect storm that will only get worse in time. When it comes to hiring skilled IT security employees, there are a number of things we as an industry need to start doing better sooner rather than later to mitigate these issues as much as possible.

The Importance of Hiring Skilled IT Employees

One of the most important steps to take when hiring and retaining skilled IT security employees involves recognizing just what an important role in your organization these people play. In many ways, highly skilled IT security employees are the very foundation of your business. This is true regardless of which industry you happen to be operating in, as these are the hardworking men and women who not only keep your mission-critical equipment stable but also ward of viruses, malware and attacks from external threats. Not only that, but they also help prevent the types of IT security mistakes that can cost your organization dearly: they help make sure your file sharing services are secure, that you aren't dealing with unknown vulnerabilities due to shadow IT and that all of your file hosting/sharing/transfer sites are configured in a way to maintain maximum privacy AND productivity at the same time.

IT security employees who have a background in mobile platforms are particularly in demand, as more and more businesses are turning towards BYOD and similar situations for their employees. Despite all this, there is STILL a shortage of qualified candidates to fill these positions.

Making the Hiring Process Easier

As employers, one of the ways that you can make the hiring process for these candidates easier involves treating them as seriously as they really are. Pay should be incredibly competitive, particularly when you compare the salary of a single IT security employee to the IBM estimated average cost of $154 per compromised record in an average data breach in 2015. These employees should be given benefits packages that reflect the important role in your business that they play, even though they're doing so from a "behind the scenes" capacity that isn't quite as visible as other positions. If you treat IT security employees as a true, organic and valued part of your business instead of looking at them as just another tool to be used and tossed aside, you'll have a much easier time of actually finding people to do this important work on a daily basis.