Cyber Security Recruitment: What You Need To Know

Of all the tech industries out there, Cyber Security may be the most important. Not only does it play a role in the success of just about every other industry out there, it also protects the information of billions of people worldwide.

Cyber Security companies can’t trust their algorithms and code with just anyone, though. To uphold their reputation they need to hire the most trustworthy and highly qualified candidates out there. In order to know how to best recruit for the Cyber Security industry, you need to know the lay of the land, where trends are moving and what the job market looks like. We’ll cover all of this in the following sections.

Table of Contents

• Cyber Security Industry Breakdown
• The Most In-Demand Roles in Cyber Security
• 9 Cyber Security Companies Recruitment Examples

CYBER SECURITY INDUSTRY BREAKDOWN

With cyber crime representing a $1.5 trillion economy, the Cyber Security industry won't be able to relax any time soon. The US government alone plans to spend around $15 billion on Cyber Security in 2019, and businesses of all sizes are recognizing the need for enhanced security.

CYBER SECURITY Breaks it Up

This CB Insights market map breaks down the top 11 Cyber Security sectors with 106 startups. As you can see, Network and Endpoint Security, Threat Intelligence and IOT/IIOT Security are the top three players vying for Cyber Security funding.

Considering the top 10 biggest data breaches in 2018 were at major corporations around the world and affected between 380,000 to 1.1 billion people, it makes sense that Network and Endpoint Security was a top producer of Cyber Security startups. On a similar note, companies are starting to take precautionary action to prevent breaches from happening in the first place, which is likely contributing to the growing Threat Intelligence sector.

CYBER SECURITY FUNDING Is Starting to Mature

The Cyber Security industry is not only growing, but it is beginning to mature. As you can see below in this graphic by Cyber Security Ventures, while total amount of funding continues to rise, the number of deals has plateaued since 2017, meaning investors are beginning to invest more in fewer companies.

As a result, those growth companies are staffing up in order to keep pace with high demand for their products and services. 

THE CYBER SECURITY JOB MARKET

With the increased risk of data breaches and hackers obtaining private information, companies and organizations are hiring Cyber Security experts to protect their data against threats. And these threats are only going to increase — so much so that it’s predicted that by 2021, there will be 3.5 million Cyber Security job openings.

The graph below shows the relationship between job postings and job seeker interest in Cyber Security roles between 2017-2018.

Interestingly, India — by far — had the largest growth in job openings, followed by Sweden, Ireland, Italy and the UK. Job seeker clicks, however, are highest in Israel followed by the Netherlands, Australia and the UK. In almost every market analyzed, the need for Cyber Security experts far outpaced interest. Overall, there was a 7.2% increase in total Cyber Security jobs between 2017 and 2018. 

THE MOST IN-DEMAND ROLES IN CYBER SECURITY

If you’re in the rapidly evolving Cyber Security industry, you don’t have time to waste on candidates that aren’t up to par with your high standards and needs. To help you understand which roles are going to be the most competitive to hire for, we gathered in-depth supply and demand information about the Cyber Security industry from our seven local communities.

Our breakdown found that 84% of open Cyber Security jobs fell under four categories: Software Engineering, Sales, Marketing and Operations. But we didn’t stop there. We've delved into each category a bit further to see which specific roles are top priorities.

Software Engineering

Software Engineers are a top hiring priority for just about every tech industry, and Cyber Security is certainly no exception. We found that Software Engineers accounted for roughly 41% of open roles in the Cyber Security industry at the time of publication.

Because Software Engineer is a fairly broad term, we dug a bit deeper to see what kinds of Engineers are most in demand among Cyber Security companies, and this is what we found:

• Java - 16%
• Ruby - 13%
• Python - 10%
• Javascript - 6%
• DevOps - 6%

Sales

Sales came in second, accounting for 22% of all open roles in the industry. Demand broke down as follows:

• Sales Development Representative - 22%
• Leadership - 18%
• Account Executive - 16%
• Sales Engineer - 10%

As the industry grows and new products hit the market, it checks out that SDRs are a highly competitive role to hire for. At the same time, Sales Leadership is another top position — as companies begin to staff up, they need to instill the right leaders to help the sales team grow with the company and industry at large.

Marketing

Marketing roles represent roughly 11% of total Cyber Security job openings. In order for Cyber Security companies to continue growing, they need to have a stellar marketing team to get their message, products and services in the right hands. Given the high demand for sales roles in Cyber Security, it makes sense that marketing teams are also scaling up in order to keep up with the demand.

Operations

Operations is the fourth most in-demand role in the Cyber Security industry, accounting for 10% of open positions. When broke down ever further, four skill sets make up nearly 60% of all operations roles.

• Technical Support - 18%
• IT - 15%
• Customer Success - 13%
• Customer Support - 13%

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9 CYBER SECURITY RECRUITMENT EXAMPLES

You've got the what and who, now you need to figure out how you're going to attract top Cyber Security candidates. We gathered examples from 9 Cyber Security companies to see what recruitment strategies they're using to attract top talent.

Auth0 Deeply Defines Their Core Values

While most careers pages share a company’s core values, Auth0 goes in-depth on their core values, including what they are and how they live them everyday. This is just a small section of their entire core values breakdown.

Duo Security Has a Dedicated Instagram for Recruitment

Duo Security has a dedicated social media account and hashtag for all of their company updates and culture highlights. On their careers page, they encourage candidates to search the hashtag #WeAreDuo, where they can find more information on day-to-day life at the company, as you can see in the Instagram post above. 

Everbridge Created a Recruitment Blog

Everbridge has a lot of sub-cultures within their company and they want to make sure candidates know exactly what they’re signing up for when they apply. So they created this blog series, covering more in-depth topics about their company and trending topics.

LogRhythm Has a Team of Adventurers

Not many employees can say their commute to work involves not only the entire company, but the entire company floating down the river for over an hour. At LogRhythm, this is actually the case. Sure, it may be only one day out of the year, but this video on their careers page showcases a unique element of their culture that shows how close knit and adventurous their team is.

Keeper Security Finds Candidates On Their Turf

If you want to find the best candidates, you need to meet them on their turf. Keeper Security makes sure to cover all their grounds by sharing job information on three top employment websites. This also allows candidates to connect with the company on the platforms they use most.

Ping Identity Really Cares About Employee Growth

Growth and education are major priorities for top candidates. For companies like Ping Identity who want to hire candidates eager to learn and develop, they share all they have to offer employees in this long-form interview about how they empower employees to grow.

Rapid7 Keeps Up With The Latest Social Trends

Rapid7 knows exactly where and how to attract the most tech-savvy social candidates out there. Not only do they share loads of company updates and elements of their culture on Instagram, but they've nailed the Instagram Stories feature, highlighting their different offices and trending topics.

SailPoint Celebrates Their Hardworking Employees

SailPoint is thrilled to celebrate the hard work and dedication of their employees. While throwing a party with cake and champagne is certainly a nice bonus, more importantly, the company makes sure to share how they value their employees on social media, getting in front of a wider audience of potential candidates. This is something that companies often talk about on their careers page, so why not share it on social?

White Ops Expands Beyond Traditional Job Boards

While traditional job posting websites are a crucial part of any recruitment strategy, WhiteOps makes sure to share their job openings and career opportunities on social media accounts like Twitter. Why? Because most candidates are passive, meaning they aren’t actively browsing job boards. But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be open to the right opportunity should it arise.