What cybersecurity companies look for when hiring talent, ETHRWorld

It is no exaggeration to say that cybersecurity is a domain that is chronically short of talent. Nearly 30% of the 40,000 job openings for cybersecurity roles during the first five months of 2023 in India went unfilled, according to a report by staffing firm TeamLease Digital. We can intuitively understand why this is the case when we consider the sheer abundance of smart connected devices around us and our dependence on them. From the perspective of an aspiring techie though this talent crunch means that cybersecurity is an excellent career option for the foreseeable future.The first thing to understand when looking at cybersecurity is how vast a domain it has become over the years, says Vivek Srivastava, country manager for India & SAARC at Fortinet. “If you look at the subject matter, it has become very comprehensive. So, now we don’t just look at a skill set around the technology or around a productive tool, instead we now look at cybersecurity as a domain and your expertise within that domain.”

As vast as the domain is though, standalone cybersecurity courses at engineering colleges are a rare sight, says Mahipal Nair, MD at Trellix India. “Only a couple of academic institutions have any sort of tailor-made programs.”

Since…