How Skills-Based Hiring Can Help Combat Cybersecurity Skills Shortages

As industry grows more technologically advanced by the day, and as more organizations of all types turn to cyber solutions to support or in some cases wholly operate their network security functions, the greater the need becomes for skilled cybersecurity professionals who can help protect those organizations’ interests.

Bad actors are everywhere, and their sophistication continues to increase in order to meet the challenge of cracking increasingly complex systems designed to prevent their entry. Businesses need cybersecurity professionals with the skills to meet and neutralize those threats. Finding skilled workers—and securing the best talent among them—has become like searching for a needle in a haystack that doesn’t even exist.

What are businesses to do? Skills-based hiring can help organizations recruit well-qualified candidates by widening the talent pool and evaluating relevant technical skills and aptitude for success in a cybersecurity role.

The Widening Cybersecurity Talent Gap

The demand for cybersecurity personnel significantly outpaces available talent in the market today. Rapid and frequent advancements in technology, as well as society’s increasing reliance on that technology to do business, has significantly driven the need for qualified cybersecurity personnel in the workforce. This threat is already affecting the bottom line of a great majority of business across industries.

According to a recent study by the World Economic Forum, there is a global skills shortage of about four million cybersecurity professionals, and that number continues to grow. Citing the Fortinet 2024 Cybersecurity Skills Gap Report, the World Economic Forum also noted that 87 percent of organizational leaders claimed one or more security breaches experienced by their business in 2023. “More than half of those respondents,” WEF wrote, “indicated that breaches cost them more than $1 million in lost revenue, fines and other expenses.”

How Skills-Based Hiring Can Bridge the Cybersecurity Talent Gap

Skills-based hiring is a proven long-term strategy that widens the recruiting pool and objectively measures the relevant skills and aptitude of job candidates. Many of these prospects may lack technical experience, but given the right tools, they could become a strong cybersecurity asset. One of the key advantages of skills-based hiring is its ability to pinpoint the candidates most likely to reach their full potential.

Businesses are facing urgent cybersecurity challenges, yet struggling with the same talent shortages as countless others. To stay ahead, organizations must start building their long-term cybersecurity talent pipeline now—and find new ways to maximize existing expertise. Although four million technically skilled prospects won’t emerge in the market overnight, many professionals who are strong candidates for a career in cybersecurity but who come from a different professional or educational background are available. This group will serve as the backbone of the professional cybersecurity force of the future.

Hiring the Next Generation of Your Cybersecurity Professionals

It raises an important question: How do businesses go about determining which nontraditional candidates meet the appropriate standard for re-training and then prime them for success as cybersecurity professionals? Skills-based hiring can help.

Soft skills are essential for a role in cybersecurity, including problem-solving ability, critical thinking, communication skills (in order to decode technical language for nontechnical colleagues and stakeholders) and adaptability. And fortunately, most of these transferable soft skills can be measured through pre-hire assessments and structured interview questions. Cybersecurity is a young, developing field that will likely always be evolving. Skills-based hiring can help identify flexible and dynamic minds, steer them toward optimal career paths and build the practical and soft skills needed to excel within the discipline. Rather than trying to compete for a dwindling pool of qualified talent, organizations can begin developing their own – which not only helps to begin addressing a current demand but also contributes to higher long-term retention rates of those employees.

Upskilling Through Skills-Based Management Strategies

Equally important in cybersecurity is the ability to invest in and upskill your IT and cybersecurity team, ensuring that they possess or acquire the latest skills and tools needed to adapt to the landscape and protect an organization. Skills-based management strategies can help with upskilling by providing insight into areas for growth and how an employee is progressing.

Some candidates and employees are better suited for a role or a career path than others, but rather than reflexively rewarding seniority or arbitrary personality traits, skills-based hiring adheres to a scientific model. This allows for a more objective and measurable approach to upskilling talent, leading to increased mobility, employee engagement and satisfaction (as well as retention). With more workers seeking upskilling opportunities from their employers, it’s a strategy that can make an organization more attractive to the best candidates.

As cyber attacks become more frequent, sophisticated and impactful across industries, organizations must find ways to address a leviathan labor shortage. Skills-based hiring is a solution that significantly widens the candidate pool beyond those with technical years of experience, not only distinguishing top cyber talent but also identifying and developing nontraditional candidates with the profiles to become productive cybersecurity professionals themselves.