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When we discuss the topic of diversity in cybersecurity, we tend to hear from senior leaders who explain the challenges they face recruiting and retaining diverse talent, and the efforts they are making to beat those challenges. This is a useful discussion, but it’s one-sided. In a continuously evolving industry, these senior leaders likely entered the profession from a completely different social and career environment to the one we are experiencing today. They would have faced different circumstances, and first hand experiences of entering the market – after a decade or two – lose relevance.
If we’re going to encourage diverse talent to enter the cybersecurity workforce, it’s a good idea to gather the perspective of those who have recently joined the industry. We should ask people who successfully joined the cybersecurity sector over the last five years about their experiences.
And so, in the latest episode of the Security Visionaries podcast, I spoke with three women who are still relatively early in their cybersecurity careers—and dispersed around the world—to extract some wisdom. The conversation was incredibly energising and informative (you can catch it all here), and at the end I asked for their thoughts on how we can attract more talent to the industry. Here is what I learned:
1. Start with education, fund scholarships and take on interns
Samantha Van Stokrom, a Solutions Engineer in Melbourne Australia, told me just how important her scholarship and subsequent internship were for her.
“My internship was the first one run in Australia. I think one of the main reasons that we now have other interns in Australia today is because that first one was so successful and done so well, that they decided to do more.