CYBER
Comments (5)
Congress should talk to the recruiters of these companies who "need a workforce". Before taking an IT role, every single Cybersecurity company applied to wanted 10 years plus experience for an "entry-level" role. There are plenty of cybersecurity people out there, but it is a dead-end when you are dealing with recruiters who don't exactly know what entry-level means. Cybersecurity degree hasn't done jack for me.
John K at 2:44 PMI'm going to take a contrarian view on the lack of entry level jobs for cybersecurity-destined young Americans. There are many of these positions you can jump into but they are not where you are looking. For those who have earned a cyber undergrad degree, congratulations. But please don't expect to be hired as a cyber ninja chasing foreign threat actors as part of a corporate security team with a six-figure salary until you've proven yourself worthy. Your first job, regardless of your degree, should be in an IT shop learning how to work in a business or operational environment, how to pull cables and install software patches, how to deal with irritated employees or customers, and how to manage highly complex information systems. Earn your ten years of experience that employers are looking for by performing very well in a technical job. Along the way learn about firewalls, intrusion detection systems, SIEM, data forensics, risk management, and incident handling. And for extra credit, volunteer to secure the network at your church or at a local civics organization. Get your experience by proving you are a hard working individual who can be trusted to properly handle very sensitive information. Then apply for a cool cyber job and watch how much in demand you are. Bottom line - "entry level" for cybersecurity really does require many years of prior experience in managing and operating computer systems and networks. If you are unwilling to gain basic IT experience then maybe you should reevaluate your career goals.
Marc Sachs at 2:23 PM
Richard Cornell's comment, above, makes perfect sense: recruit the people we need from a worldwide talent pool.
What also makes sense is the following: limit government-subsidized student lending to jobs that have an actual marketplace need. Any compenptent economist can reasonably project, with 90% accuracy, the skills needed within 10 years. I'm not saying people can't continue to pursue Law, "Gender Studies " or "Mass Communication" degrees - it's just that I see no reason for the government to provide subsidized loans to students who want to chase a degree for which we already have a huge surplus of graduates.
My brother-in-law is from the old country and when he was growing up his father put him into a training problem to be an engineer. One of the first things he did was to take a square block of metal and with a file make a large ball, then a slice was cut off and again he shaped it into a ball, and that went on until he had a ball bearing. When you have a few hundred students doing the same thing, then they slowly did that for years and many went on into industries. My brother-in-law worked for Bethel on worldwide projects.
India has a program where students do just about everything that deals with computers and each year 100,000 when they leave school is your IT people. That has been going on for years. You might want to take said Indian students and fast-track them into being American citizens.
In Japan how many students that are not selected for jobs in that country would jump at the chance to be hired by a US firm and fast track to American citizenship?
Korean students with IT education would jump at the chance to work in the US and again fast-track to being a American.
It's all about the pay and benefits. If you can actually do the job, industry pays far more with greater opportunities, and they don't care about many things that would get in the way of a security clearance. Government jobs are a dead end. Nobody with the potential to be successful in cybersecurity wants to work at a government or defense industry job.
Ainsley Lowbeer at 10:19 AM