What is the importance of hiring cybersecurity professionals?
Given the increasingly digital nature of modern work, there is a lot at stake, and you certainly don’t want to compromise your company’s integrity by entrusting it to someone who isn’t qualified for the job. By following a few best practices, you can staff your IT department with competent and effective cybersecurity professionals.
Importance of cybersecurity in general
As more work becomes digital, your cybersecurity is ideally up to the task of protecting your network against intrusion from bad actors. Sensitive data, such as your employees’ or customers’ personal and financial information, can be exploited if acquired in a hack and therefore requires the highest level of security.
But it isn’t just your customers and employees at risk: If you improperly protect proprietary information or work in progress, you could end up losing a lot of money. Sometimes, years of work can be wasted if your network is compromised even once. The cost of getting your network back up and running can be extraordinary, especially in comparison to the cost of proper cybersecurity, and that doesn’t include any compensation you may be liable to pay if a lawsuit is brought against your company. Your company’s reputation can also take a hit. Customers and vendors will be less trustful when dealing with your company, which can have an impact on your bottom line.
All of these negative consequences, and the pain and embarrassment that comes with fixing them, can be avoided if you hire the right cybersecurity professionals. But what skills and competencies should you look for when hiring?
Hard skills
All cybersecurity professionals are technologically savvy, but not everyone who is technologically savvy is a cybersecurity professional. It is therefore important that the person you hire for this role has a few specific cybersecurity hard skills. First and foremost, cybersecurity professionals should be technically competent. They should have a firm grasp of security protocols, encryption, network security, hardware, and software, as they will be using a variety of tools to monitor your network and mitigate any security risk.
While not mandatory, it’s always a good idea to hire someone who has experience in your particular industry rather than a generalist. For example, if you are a food producer, it helps if your cybersecurity team has experience in the food industry or an adjacent industry such as agriculture. This helps establish a level of familiarity with your business’ particulars, such as which information is most sensitive and requires a bespoke security solution, and which information can be left to automation. Very good cybersecurity professionals are also in high demand, so opt for candidates who are more familiar with the nature of your work where possible.
Soft skills
Effective cybersecurity professionals also possess a range of soft skills that can have an impact far beyond their role. Think of collaboration: If your employees can work with IT to solve their problems, this makes their lives easier and your company can become more productive. If your cybersecurity team is adaptable, your business can expand and try new things without worrying about whether your systems can keep up. If your cybersecurity team maintains adequate communication during times of technological crisis (such as an outage), your employees won’t panic, which can go a long way towards maintaining the stability of your operations.
You can’t always take people at their word; that’s why it’s important to take the time to validate any candidates’ claims of soft skills by speaking to their references. You’re checking their references anyway, given the high-security nature of their work, but hiring managers sometimes forget to ask about soft skills and only validate tenure or performance. Asking prior employers about a candidate’s likability, adaptability, communication skills, and reliability can go a long way to making sure you aren’t about to invest time and energy into hiring a new employee who won’t be a good fit.
Do it yourself or hire a recruiter?
Now that you know what to look for when hiring a cybersecurity professional, the question becomes whether you should recruit and hire them yourself (or via your company’s HR department), or whether you should outsource this important job to a technical recruiter.
If you plan to do it yourself, make sure you have a holistic understanding of your company’s cybersecurity needs. It’s hard to hire for a system you don’t fully understand. If your company has its own IT department, they should be the first people you consult. They know your specific tech stack intimately and can recommend improvements on how to secure it. They’re also familiar with industry trends and can offer advice on any education or experience candidates should have.
If cybersecurity is not your field of expertise, that’s okay. There are entire firms that specialize in recruiting technical roles, including cybersecurity. When evaluating which of these firms to hire, it’s important to do a cost-benefit analysis. Remember, it can be expensive and quite time-consuming to find, hire, and train a new employee (and there’s no guarantee you’ll get it right, which can lead to the cycle repeating itself). You may end up saving money by hiring a technical recruiting firm to find good candidates on your behalf. That’s another benefit of hiring a recruiter: Candidates will be pre-screened and tailored to your company’s needs. This can save you the work of having to filter through countless resumes that might not come close to what you require.
Regardless of the approach you take, it’s important to invest time and money into cybersecurity, and the first step in that process is hiring the right people to handle it for you. Even though it might seem stressful, some people can help you make the right decision, one that will pay dividends in the future when you have reduced downtime from a secure network.
