July 21, 2020 – Increasingly, organizations of all sizes are awakening to the perils posed by cyber attacks. For years, many groups tried to ignore the problem, dismissing cybersecurity as a concern only for the biggest, most high-profile entities, be they government or corporate. These days, more groups are coming to understand how ruinous such intrusions could be. This has led to a dramatic rise in the demand for cybersecurity executives and search firms in this sector continuing to grow.
Recently, CyberSN, a boutique search firm serving talent needs in cybersecurity, and CyberForward by CISOSHARE formed a partnership to provide trained cyber talent with work experience at affordable rates.
“Developing the skills needed to be valuable on a cybersecurity team takes hands on experience and time,” said Deidre Diamond, founder and CEO of CyberSN and founder of Security Diversity. “Most cybersecurity teams don’t have the budgets to hire junior talent and thus their senior talent leaves from burnout. By partnering with CyberForward, CyberSN is able to offer our clients experienced junior talent at affordable rates.”
CyberForward has created a program that takes underrepresented individuals to provide them with both practical and on-the-job-training for six months while CyberSN can offer their services full time to organizations looking to build a pipeline of qualified talent.
“Hiring cyber talent in an environment where high turnover is common starts with retention,” the companies said. “Cyber professionals are looking for opportunities for growth, which means having junior resources to provide coverage and relieve burnout that could overwhelm senior professionals.”
CyberForward and CyberSN are filling this gap by providing trained cyber talent with work experience at affordable rates. Organizations can build a pipeline of talent for their teams without having to work with resources with limited work experience.
“While historically talent development has been solely on the shoulders of the developing professional,” said Mike Gentile, founder, president, and CEO of CISOSHARE and founder of CyberForward. “With CyberForward, we believe talent development as a team sport is the best path forward. This team-based approach is why we created a support system of mentors, community and cyber security partners that all work together throughout a participant’s journey.”
Cyber Security Specialists
“We could not be happier with the addition of CyberSN as such a key and meaningful partner and member of the team for everyone involved from program participants to the organizations that need them,” Mr. Gentile said.
Security Threats Create Talent Challenges, Opportunities
Cybersecurity might well be the greatest challenge facing corporate America today. The threat to reputation, private information and dollars — both from immediate theft and the cost of repairing the damage of a cyber-attack — can be staggering.
CyberForward is a multi-phase professional development program that first identifies individuals with aptitudes to be successful in cybersecurity, develops their skills with focused role-based training and a comprehensive support system, and then gets them into working jobs on the path to a livable wage. The program enables success by working with participants to remove common roadblocks such as housing, access to transportation, technology, or other financial limitations so they can focus on their skill development and a successful career in cybersecurity.
CyberSN was founded in 2014 to address the challenges of job searching and hiring in the cybersecurity profession. Not long after, Ms. Diamond founded the non-profit organization Secure Diversity, to address the gender gap in the industry. Together, CyberSN and Secure Diversity have created a number of events and programs to bring new people into the infosec profession and reshape the idea of what it takes to be a cybersecurity practitioner.
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
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