Utilizing Data Insights for Hiring Cybersecurity Experts

Thank you. And just to confirm, you can hear me okay. We can hear you well. Wonderful, good staff.

Well, thank you for the very warm welcome. It's an absolute pleasure to be here and I wish to send my, my welcome to all of you who have attended both in person and virtually today, as we've touched on the topic for today is utilizing data insights for hiring a topic that is very close to my heart. And when businesses look to make informed decisions around acquisitions and growth and revenue here within HR and talent acquisition, it is no different as we look to hire the next gen talent today, I'm gonna be walking you through. I like for like comparison by the deck that I've created.

And as we move on, I'm gonna give you a, a thorough understanding as to what the market is telling us today in the, in the way of talent and the amount of jobs we have in market, I'm gonna be utilizing LinkedIn as I firmly believe that is the most comprehensive platform in the market in terms of business professionals. And it'll give us a solid view as to what the market is telling us and how we can make informed decisions around this.

Now, during my time in talent attraction security architect is, is one of the most common roles that I've looked to hire for. And I'm gonna use this as a prime example, as we walk through this step going on LinkedIn, as we search for security architects in jobs in the UK. If you look to the right hand side of the screen, you'll see a population of around 2,700 roles that are available in market today. And you'll see that there are stereotypical players in the sense of systems, integrators, defense, like organizations, and of course management consultancy that are looking to hire this talent.

Now, as us as a business look to hire such talents. And, and I, for one, I would search for common titles and, and skills around this initially to, to find this talent. And you'll see some of those titles to the left hand side as to what we may search for such as architect as is presales sales engineer, technical consultants, and so on and so forth.

Now, in order to be very specific in our search, I will also be applying cybersecurity as a skill in this instance. Now, as we address this search and, and look to search for this talent, you'll see to the left hand side in the way of professionals, there are 651 individuals that are potentially able to perform this role today. So I won't be flicking back to the previous slide, but if you remember the current jobs in the UK market today are 2,700 or just over and again, looking for the like, like comparison, there are only 651 individuals that can potentially perform this role.

So we see a huge lack of talent in the market today, and some disparity and fill in that job gap. You would also see some stereotypical players in the way of computer software organizations. It services some network security players, and of course, some MSPs as well.

So again, quite common organizations hiring for this talent. However, as we look to open the market and be more considerate when looking for this talent, if, for example, we were to take away the key skill of cybersecurity, this would open up the market drastically, and you'll see, on the right hand side, the amount of professionals potentially able to form this role today, open up to over 40,000. So it's a market that we wish to be in that there is more talent than jobs quite naturally.

And you'll see, also from the companies below that there is a wide range of organizations that are also employing this talent. You'll see, again, some systems integrators, you'll see some financial institutions, you'll see some armed forces and of course, management consultancies. Once again, one of the biggest gaps that we also see in the market is gender diversity. When looking to hire the market is telling us today, and it isn't just UK, by the way, it's on a, on a worldwide basis, there is cer of one female candidates versus nine male candidates in market.

And in order to close that gap in terms of gender equality, as well as neurodiversity, the ideal state would be a 50 50 presence. But as we look to address that skill shortage and open it up to the market, we then see the increase from 9% representation to around 22%.

So again, not an ideal state, but much, much better in terms of gender diversity. As we look for the skills of the future, there has been many, many articles published on LinkedIn and, and so on and so forth around hiring for skills and growth as opposed to titles alone. And as we plan for the future, again, going on this light for like comparison, you'll see the common skills in security architects today, holding the likes of security, operations, analytical skills, missed framework, understanding, and of course, security consulting. So they're all great skills for already made fit.

However, as we look to hire for the skills of the future, and as we look to push next gen cloud native tools to market, we also need to look at areas such as cloud, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, which are commonality when built into these products.

And you'll see, as we open this market, you'll see those skills on the right hand column, such as Microsoft Azure, AWS cloud security, and of course, AI and ML, when hiring it's all well and good having a fantastic product, but that may stop at that culture is absolutely critical for candidates in today's market when making informed decisions as to who their next employer may be. And you'll see again, like for like the value propositions are pretty similar.

However, one of the biggest standouts is colleagues and culture that inspire employees to do their best. If culture isn't right, we may not be able to attract the very best candidates in market. They wish to learn. They wish to grow. They need to be invested in, and if we are not doing that, another organization may. So culture is absolutely key in getting it right from the top down, right from sea level and the boardroom right down to the bottom level.

As we look to assess talent against our competitors, it's all well and good looking at other computer software organizations, other network security providers, and so on and so forth. However, as we've addressed already, you'll see that the talent pool is extremely small and we're all fighting for the same candidates in the market today.

However, as we look outside of security and look at differentiated industries, and again, differentiated thoughts perhaps, and experiences this open up, this does open up the market once again. So we can look outside of network security and computer software to then perhaps consider other industries such as management consultancies, such as the big four, for example, and so forth, but also higher education. And it's a, perhaps an industry that many wouldn't have considered for talent in the past. But as we work across this road, you'll see that the amount of professionals is high.

There is a lot of job postings. The hiring demand, however, is quite low. So the buoyancy versus other markets is quite low and you'll also the compensation versus other industries is quite low as well, in retrospect. So if your organization is working on a budget, we can also look at other industries where maybe the pay is lower than that, of yours. One of the other areas that I wanted to highlight as well is the gender equality.

Now, if we look to the left hand side, female representation is highlighted in the, the light blue, the almost green color and male representation in the dark blue. Again, if we were to move over to the right hand column, you'll see that it's not at the perfect or, or the ideal state of the 50 50 split, but it's much better. It's around the 20, 25%. So it has increased. And it means that there will be more population of female candidates that we potentially can consider for our roles. As we look to hybrid work, flexible working, this is the future.

This is what we're all experiencing today and have done over the past 18 to 24 months. Now, it, it, it shouldn't be unfamiliar to all of us.

However, trust me, there are some roles that do require, you know, the job to be in location for maybe five days a week. There are others, maybe, maybe other employers where they have had to drag employees back to the office, and there is no necessity, you know, and there's that balance is lost in the equality and the cultural aspect that may have been lost as well. When organizations are investing time, effort, and money in working from home resources, it doesn't make sense to then bring employees back to the office against their will sometimes.

So as we look at locations and we looked at the talent market, trust me, I've been told Joel, go find me a candidate in the London area. We are based in London.

We need, we need close proximity to the office location. And in the past, I wouldn't have questioned it.

However, today, as we look at hybrid work and flexibility around working arrangements, that means that the market has grown and have also, we can consider talent in locations that we may have never, ever considered talent before. So again, I, I look at prime example of Scotland across the UK.

It's, it's an area that we haven't, or I haven't hired too many candidates in the past, but we look at Edinburgh, we look at Blasco and that has crept up on the list on the right hand side. So again, locations that maybe candidates have moved outside of the city from, and two such as small villages and towns, where there may be hotspots of talent.

Now, as we move on the assessing the talent and the principles of hiring is great. We found our candidates, we've spoken with them, we've assessed them for their abilities and qualities. And they're interested in working for your organization. The next stage of the process in the way of interviews and hiring is just as important, if not even more. And if I direct your attention to the center of the screen, you'll see the three bubbles around hiring manager, candidate, and recruiter.

And we need to make sure from the start of the process to the very, very end that this collaboration is as close again, as a start towards the end as well. If we work around the outer ring in terms of the orange arrows we'll work clockwise. So as we look at the role brief, we are looking to get this right in the first instance, because if we don't the rest of the process, we will not follow suits. It will not be collaborative. It will not be universal. And we will likely lose out on some of the best talents.

One of the things that we look to address is having Jo specifications tailored for the role. And what I mean by that is every new role that comes in the Joss Beck is tailored for that month quarter, that fiscal year, as opposed to using older job descriptions from three, four or five years ago, because the market has moved on, served the skills. And so is the job responsibilities in general.

So again, we need to make sure that the role briefing is actually crucial and right at the first instance, as we look to hire the skills of the future, of course, it's all went and good looking at those hard skills, those skills that candidates have abundance, or have learned such as cloud security analytics, but also as we face and everchanging in market, both in the way of job searching and also security and the growth and vastness solve this, we need to look at those softer skills, those interchangeable skills that adaptability for change and the ability to learn new skills in pretty quick succession.

So looking at competency based interviewing as opposed to do job, have the skills for the job today is the best way to approach this because we do not know what the market is gonna tell us in six months, 12 months or beyond, as I've touched on in some of the previous slides, culture is absolutely crucial and should be fundamental of each. And every process that we look to interview candidates against, we could have the very best candidates in markets.

We could have a security architect guru, but if they are acting as a lone Wolf, if they do not collaborate or believe in the company culture, then perhaps it's not gonna be a go the interview stage of feedback. Again, closing out our hiring are absolutely crucial in this and making sure that everyone assigned to interview candidates is universally aligned in what they are gonna be doing throughout the process so that there is not a duplication of questions that they are not assessing candidates against the old job description and so on and so forth.

So the interview stage and making sure that it's as two way as possible, that the candidate is felt at ease as well, a responsible or the responsibilities do fall on the interviewer as well. And feedback, I think feedback is, is, is again, just as important as the rest. So this individual, this candidate has invested time and effort in preparing for these interviews.

And we need to make sure that we are also investing in them in the way of giving them adequate feedback as to whether they've got the job themselves, or if they haven't what skills they can work on, or look to grow or learn so that when they come back to interview in 3, 4, 5 months time, that they are ready to go once more, this is a high level representation of timelines and how we look to assess the closing date, as well as the start. Of course, now I'm gonna give an example of it's way out there, but we are hiring for 100 security architects.

We need to have an end date and how we work through this process is almost reverse engineer it. So if we are looking to hire 100 security architects by March, April, we need to get going now, but we also need to understand that everything is closed out by April and your onboarding and offer process does close out out at that time. It's the same sense for interviews. So when we look to interview, we block out times and dates into in the interview panels diaries for weeks and sometimes months in advance so that there cannot be blockers from other appointments or elsewhere.

So that again, they're accountable for attending that interview on that day. And again, they're aware as to when we're gonna be hiring, say for example, every Tuesday for two to three months, time, 10 attraction.

Again, this goes on accountability. So if we are looking to bring individuals on board by the April timeframe, that we are not leaving things until the last minute that we are accountable for our own actions and we need to put in the groundwork almost immediately. And of course the evaluation stage. So making sure that when we are evaluating what the role is, the brief and how we're gonna go to market on this talent, that again, we are closing that out as soon as possible with not too many questions needing to be asked.

And as I move onto my final slide, as we, as we are looking to work through this process and the timelines and what the day is going to look like, this is a simplified very, very high level view as to how we can consolidate a lot of that process into one single day. Trust me, I've had candidates and I've been a candidate where I have to interview five, six, maybe seven times over as many weeks or even a few months as well. It's not a great experience. It really isn't.

So what we should be looking to do is because it's a buoyant market, it's a candidate orientated market is to behold a matter of interviews around three, maybe on that day and only lasting around 45 minutes long. So again, the, we are able to assess the candidate for the skills of technical ability around commercial or competency based, and also potentially assessing them against case studies. So maybe scenario based questions around how they would do a certain thing in a certain instance.

And again, the reason we do it this way is because it's a quick, drawn out affair. You know, the candidates are able to get fast feedback. It's a fast process. It's all almost like speed dating in life, and it's done virtually as well. So obviously how we have looked to hire over the past dating for 24 months is all virtually. We appreciate candidates can no longer come to the office, or even today it can be a slog with traffic becoming a thing again. So we need to make sure that the way that we do things from here on out are done virtually is fast and of course is comprehensive.

And we once give the candidates a great experience of that as well. Thank you all for your time today. It's been a pleasure and being here and I'll return to the floor. Thank you.