{"id":58235,"date":"2025-03-03T16:10:41","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T16:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/cybersecurity-not-the-hiring-em-like-hotcakes-role-it-once-was\/"},"modified":"2025-03-03T16:10:41","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T16:10:41","slug":"cybersecurity-not-the-hiring-em-like-hotcakes-role-it-once-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/cybersecurity-not-the-hiring-em-like-hotcakes-role-it-once-was\/","title":{"rendered":"Cybersecurity not the hiring-’em-like-hotcakes role it once was"},"content":{"rendered":"

Analysis<\/span> It’s a familiar refrain in the security industry that there is a massive skills gap in the sector. And while it’s true there are specific shortages in certain areas, some industry watchers believe we may be reaching the point of oversupply for generalists.<\/p>\n

It seems every year there’s another warning about a shortage for security talent \u2013 the first warning we found on The Register<\/em> is from 2009<\/a> \u2013 yet lately this reporter has run into more and more people in the field who are recounting that even getting an interview can be tough.<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Reg<\/em>, Mary McHale, who works as a careers advisor for UC Berkeley Master’s in Cybersecurity, said: “I kind of joke with my students that when I started, I felt like if you could spell cybersecurity you would get an interview. Now a lot of things have changed.<\/p>\n

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There has been a tendency for those recruiting security professionals to ask for a lot of experience and offer not much in the way of compensation, which turns off many applicants<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

“During COVID, there was huge hiring. Then after that, the companies said ‘Oh my gosh, we have too many people. We need to do some downsizing.’ And what happened then was a lot of very talented tech people were laid off and began flooding the market in all sorts of areas and began trying to reposition themselves.”<\/p>\n

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The problem is also exacerbated by the latest generation of AI products coming onto the market, McHale explained, and not just in security. AI agents now routinely<\/a> make decisions about a person’s resume and many applicants lack the skills to game such software and bag an interview.<\/p>\n

There’s also the problem of ghost jobs<\/a> bedeviling recruitment websites, she added. The majority of HR people surveyed in multiple studies report filing job adverts for positions that don’t exist. Reasons vary from trying to give the impression a business is growing to both insiders and onlookers, and to motivate staff to work harder because “they think they are replaceable.”<\/p>\n