The ongoing evolution of the cybersecurity landscape and threat complexity has initiated an arms race between security teams and cyber criminals. As well as scrambling to keep up with new and developing threats, organizations are seeing their talent exfiltrated by recruiters at an alarming rate. The cybersecurity talent pool is short nearly 500,000 people in the United States alone, and over 4 million people worldwide. As the force behind the technology, your people are your most important asset, so ensure that you prepare and defend against talent exfiltration by taking the right steps towards a nurturing, human-first workplace.
The average tenure of a CISO is just 26 months, with many cybersecurity professionals moving roles even more frequently. The reason behind such erratic and frequent job changes is clear; cybersecurity work environments are often negative spaces:
Cybersecurity recruiters understand these challenges, meaning they can easily guide your talent towards new, hot jobs by listening to the marketplace and the professionals in their network, paying close attention to high turnover and stagnating profiles on LinkedIn.
Staying ahead of talent exfiltration means creating a nurturing, inspiring work environment for your cybersecurity team, and taking the right steps to improve work-life balance.
1. Start with your retention plan
If you’re looking to hire, focus on your retention plan first. If a lot of your employees are leaving, look at what you’re not offering them and the reasons why. Good retention is a key part of your employer brand, showing new hires and existing staff that you care about their career progression and personal needs.
2. A human-first approach
As humans, we all want to be treated kindly, feel safe in our jobs, and, of course, make money. Managing others means caring for and seeing them as more than just their job title. It’s also important to have a good understanding of your employee’s roles and responsibilities, at both a task and project level, in order to identify further requirements.
3. Take security seriously
People may leave your team for a variety of reasons, and it’s not always your fault, but sitting back and waiting for roles to be filled means you’ll lose more. Leaving open roles unfilled is a sign that you’re not willing to invest in security and therefore don’t see its value. When you don’t invest in resources to find the best professionals, you send a clear message to the rest of your team that you don’t care about their work
4. Monitor and invest in your employees
Make sure that you’re equipped to monitor how your employees are feeling and performing on a regular basis. It’s important to continually invest in training and support based on how your teams progress.
5. Employ the right resources
Working with a talent agency that understands the pressure of the cybersecurity industry and the requirements you have is key to hiring the best candidates and preventing talent exfiltration.
At CyberSN, our expertise in the cybersecurity industry and talent matching helps you build your teams faster, stronger, and to last, understanding not just what roles you’re hiring, but why. We believe that cybersecurity professionals should love their job, so we strive to match our candidates’ passions with the right opportunities. CyberSN are more than just HR; we help attract the most diverse, interested and qualified candidates, quickly filling your jobs with candidates that will succeed and be retained.
