The vast majority of cyber security professionals are men. And when it comes to discussions on how to get more women into the field of cyber security, most of the conversation revolves around preparing young girls to enter this field once they reach adulthood.
But steps can be taken now to create a more diverse landscape within cyber security. There are already women with a strong interest in infosec and who have both the technical and soft skills required to succeed in this niche industry.
However, proactive efforts have to be made to attract these candidates, so let’s discuss exactly how to do just that!
Go to Where Women Are
Events
If you went to a meeting for the largest cyber security meetup group in your city, by just looking at the attendees, you would likely come away with the impression that there are hardly any women interested in cyber security. But if you attended a Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) meetup or any other like-wise meetup aimed at women in infosec, you would wonder “Where did all these women come from!”
When it comes to recruiting women for cyber security jobs, women-focused meetups, conferences, and job fairs are the best places to meet technically-skilled women all in one place, all at the same time. These events provide an opportunity to connect face-to-face with qualified candidates and get a feel for their personalities.
If there are no tech job fairs geared towards women in your city or you’re not able to participate in a virtual job fair hosted by a women’s tech organization, your company could host its own job fair or at the very least sponsor a career fair that is actively trying to make headway in getting more women into cyber security.
If you don’t find even one woman you’d be interested in hiring at one of these events, one of the women you meet likely knows and can refer to you another woman in infosec who could be the right fit for your team (good ole networking!).
To find women-focused cyber security meetups in your city, search Meetup.com. See if there are WiCyS or The Women’s Society of Cyberjutsu meetups nearby. Also, it’d be worth the trip to visit WiCyS’s huge annual conference for women in cyber.
Job Boards
If you are mainly relying on general job boards like Indeed or Dice to source candidates, you are missing out on websites that have a whole database of resumes from women in tech. While mass job boards can still be helpful, it will be an eye-opening revelation to discover that a pool of qualified female candidates can be found on sites like:
- Women in Technology (WIT)
- The Women’s Society of Cyberjutsu (WSC)
- WiCyS
- Women Who Code
- Tech Ladies
- DiversityJobs
By choosing to source candidates from woman-focused job sites, you greatly increase your chances of finding qualified women to join your team.
Recruit Women From Adjacent Fields
With cyber security, we all know there’s more to it than just keeping computers virus-free. Sure, that’s important, but there’s a lot more to it. To be successful in this field, it takes more than just a technical understanding of how computers and networks work. It also takes a certain way of thinking: the ability to understand complex systems and to know how to find and exploit weaknesses. Long ago, I was able to hack Burger King’s online survey system while barely knowing what an IP address was, but that’s a story for another day!
This type of hacker-like thinking and problem-solving can be found across fields that are tangential to cyber security. We all know smart, passionate service desk technicians who didn’t have any formal security training or certifications and were hired into entry-level cyber security roles and rocked it. And what about data analysts, engineers, coders, and even accountants? People who deal with and synthesize hard data into coherent metrics could quickly acclimate to your company’s security model.
By expanding your search for women candidates outside of pure infosec or computer science backgrounds, you could come across the best additions to your security team yet.
Build Relationships with Key Women
If you know even just one woman tech leader in your city and you ask her where you can find women cyber security candidates, she is likely to help you find a treasure trove of women tech talent or to put you in touch with another person who can.
Thankfully in this day and age, finding a woman tech leader if you don’t yet know of one is as easy as starting up a conversation on LinkedIn, Twitter – or even Facebook if you use it for professional purposes. A few good places to start would be reaching out to the leaders of BlackGirlsHack, WiCyS, or WIT.
Another effective way to find women who are interested in working in cyber security is to ask your current contacts – men and women – if they know of anyone. It’s been shown that people are more likely to be hired into an organization if they are recommended by someone who already works there. So by asking your contacts specifically about potential women candidates and giving your insider’s stamp of approval to those who meet your criteria, you’re actively contributing to the diversification of an industry that has quite a ways to go as far as representation.
But…Who Really Cares?
Why does recruiting more women into the cyber security field even matter? Shouldn’t you just hire the best candidate for the job regardless of gender, ethnic origin, etc.?
Make Your Team Attractive
It might be a surprising thought to some, but not everyone enjoys working on a homogenous team. With the majority of security teams around the world being composed of mostly men, smart, talented people of any gender who would prefer to work on diverse teams could be turned off entirely by the cyber security niche and decide to take their talents elsewhere.
So, the more women you have on your team, the more appealing your team could appear to prospects who value diversity and are considering applying to join your team. By proactively recruiting women, you can make sure that your company is seen as an attractive option for them. This proactive approach to recruitment is a secret weapon to attracting the best talent in the field.
We’re All Falling Behind
According to (ISC)²’s 2021 Cybersecurity Workforce Study, “the global cybersecurity workforce needs to grow 65% to effectively defend organizations’ critical assets.” There’s a dire lack of cyber security professionals, period! The industry cannot afford to let the need for security practitioners grow even larger or else we risk the exploitation and collapse of things that allow us to enjoy our everyday lives, such as critical infrastructure. It’s time to get creative in growing cyber security teams by searching for overlooked talent, which often includes women.
Outperform Your Competitors
According to McKinsey’s Diversity Wins report, “Our 2019 analysis finds that companies in the top quartile of gender diversity on executive teams were 25 percent more likely to experience above-average profitability than peer companies in the fourth quartile.” So, ignoring the importance of gender diversity steals from a company’s bottom line.
If you’re committed to building a more diverse cyber security team and reaping the financial benefits, you can take proactive steps:
- source candidates from websites that specialize in connecting employers with women in tech
- attend events aimed at women in S.T.E.A.M.
- establish and grow professional relationships with women in security
Do you know of any companies whose CISOs, CTOs, or CIOs have prioritized diversifying their cyber security teams and are taking action to make it truly happen? If so, shout them out down below in the comments. They’ve got to exist, right?
Related Articles:
– How To Get Into Cyber Security: Entry-Level Cyber Security Jobs
– Women’s History Month
