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The Cybersecurity Industry Is Hiring, But Young People Aren't Interested

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-thank-you dept.

Daniel_Stuckey writes "Cybersecurity, as an industry, is booming. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs as network systems and information security professionals are expected to grow by 53 percent through 2018. Yet, young people today aren't interested in getting jobs in cybersecurity. By all accounts it's a growing and potentially secure, lucrative job. But according to a new survey by the defense tech company Raytheon, only 24 percent of millennials have any interest in cybersecurity as a career."

14 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. hire me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not a millennial, but I am familiar with computer system security, and while I don't have a security clearance, I do have a clean record which makes it possible to get one. Perhaps raytheon et al are simply expecting too much for too little pay. They're not going to find BS degree'd, clean cut 20 somethings with no criminal record if they insist on offering $12/hr wages. That mythical 22 year old working 22 hours a day for 22k a year doesn't exist.

    The employees are out there but they cannot work for chinese slave labor wages, nor do they want that lifestyle.

    1. Re:hire me by InfiniteLoopCounter · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I have to agree. I would have worked for Raytheon if they were interested in me as I have all the required study and would work initially for cheap, but they have basically said f*** o** to me in the past with no response. How am I supposed to now be interested in working for a company that only seems to want people with existing experience as well as skills? Sounds like they want to avoid training anybody and have poor HR people, do little advertising at universities, and cry like babies when they "can't find anybody."

    2. Re:hire me by gl4ss · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't know who the fuck made the conclusions but 24% is a friggin big portion.

      that's like bigger than firemen, airline pilots or what have you. it's such a big pile of people that there's no frigging way for them all to have jobs in "cybersecurity".

      would be rather pointless too if more than a quarter of a generation was needed for it. that would be quite telling of the fact that they wouldn't be actually doing any cybersecurity work but working as STASI.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    3. Re:hire me by NJRoadfan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If the job required any sort of federal security clearance, chances are they were looking for someone who already had one. They don't want to spend the time and money on getting clearances.

    4. Re:hire me by CRC'99 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The employees are out there but they cannot work for chinese slave labor wages, nor do they want that lifestyle.

      11 months ago I finished my Commercial Pilots License - I haven't been able to find any work at all since completing it. That was the last time I touched a plane.

      The same problem exists. People are expected to splash $100k AUD on their license, then work for ~$25k a year. Not to mention get themselves to jobs on their own dime etc... I hear the same lines "There is a massive pilots shortage!!" - which is absolute bullshit. We just have to take other jobs to pay off the loans etc we took for our training.

      It just about gutted my career - but this is the world we live in. Now I'm only casually employed - and making about the same amount as I would as a pilot - while working only a handful of hours.

      --
      Sendmail is like emacs: A nice operating system, but missing an editor and a MTA.
    5. Re:hire me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      They don't want to spend the time and money on getting clearances.

      First, the contracting companies that hire the people do not pay for the clearance. The fed pays a third party to do all the investigations. It is all about the time. It can take a year or more to get a clearance. The government will not put any one in for a clearance unless they are working on a contract that requires that the person has a clearance and most contract will not allow a person to work on the contract unless they already have a clearance. It is a catch-22.

    6. Re:hire me by Notabadguy · · Score: 5, Informative

      What the civilian world calls cyber security, the military calls information assurance (IA) and information warfare (IW).

      My personal story:

      I was in the army's IA ranks. I had an active TS/SCI clearance, had published policy papers within my...inner specialty, was a welcome addition to Defcon - I have an Ivy League education, at the time had an incredible network of IA/IW contacts, and left the army as a JMO (Junior Military Officer).

      When I left the army (at 28) I was considered a hot commodity in the cybersecurity world. I interviewed with both Raytheon and SAIC, and turned down head-hunters from several other companies. Both companies made me an offer; SAIC for $55,000 a year, and Raytheon for $42,000 a year. Both offers were less than I was already making, and both companies explained that everyone starts at the bottom and works their way up. I declined both and took a position outside cybersecurity for $79,000/yr.

      At the time, cybersecurity wasn't willing to pay a clean-cut, clean-record military officer already in the field with requisite training, clearances, background screening and aptitude as much as I already made in the military, and the military isn't where high dollar jobs are.

    7. Re:hire me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      former raytheon employee here; nobody who know anything about cybersecurity wants to work for them. The RayCERT is a joke. Raytheon has one very young and extremely unqualified person in charge of cybersecurity. How did he get his job? He was born to a Raytheon family. Nepotism rules that organization more than any Japanese Keiretsu or Korean Chaebol. Then you have people who treat computers as "those new fangled dohickies" in charge of IT security. My supervisor considered anybody born after 1959 a millenial. That doesn't even begin to address the turf war between the IT security and industrial security types that leaves a lot of stepping on each other toes in some areas and huge holes in coverage in others. In short, nobody who know anything about Raytheon and cybersecurity wants to work for Raytheon cybersecurity.

  2. I'm not surprised. by Xenkar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I certainly wouldn't take a job that would force me to flee to another country for asylum if my conscience makes me become a whistle blower.

    1. Re:I'm not surprised. by cardpuncher · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Cybersecurity doesn't necessarily mean surveillance. There's a more attractive side, too - you could spend your entire life running change control on a library of hundred-page procedure documents and reviewing firewall logs. Now, what kid could turn down *that* opportunity?

    2. Re: I'm not surprised. by O('_')O_Bush · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This. What the article doesn't explain is what cyber security usually entails at a defense contractor. I did that kind of work for about a year, and wanted to pull me own fingers off.

      It was where they took bright engineers, gave them tedious and excruciatingly boring tasks, burned them out, and replaced them. You'd think cyber security would be somewhat cool, but in reality, it was taking several multi-thousand line spreadsheet checklists, run some scripts, and manually put passes or fails for the things the scripts didn't cover. Do that all day every day for every type of server and every project, repeatedly, till all or almost all checks were passed. And then, do documentation.

      I would say that where I worked, the youngest crowd were the only suckers willing to take that work. Everyone else knew better.

      --
      while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
  3. Does everyone have to work in cybersecurity?!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I would've thought 24% of young people being interested is pretty good. Especially for a niche job like this.

  4. Re:only 24 percent of millennials have any interes by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Funny

    Think of when you were in class - if a quarter of the whole class were interested in one career.

    Pretty even split between train drivers and astronauts.

    That's the boys, obviously. I have no idea about the girls and they have cooties anyway.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  5. Lies, damn lies, and statistical illiteracy by taikedz · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the Raytheon article key figures: "Young men (35 percent) are far more interested than young women (14 percent) in a career in cybersecurity." If that many people are interested in cybersecurity, I'd call that "an overwhelming proportion" of persons being interested in cybersecurity. By that count, that's an enormous population of paranoid technofreaks.

    "The survey also found less than one-quarter of young adults aged 18 to 26 believed the career is interesting at all." And how much of the total population gets employed in computer security AS A WHOLE? Less than 0.1% easily. How many other types of jobs, areas of interest and careers are there WITHOUT EVEN leaving the IT world?

    The study page even highlights that they didn't target IT graduates. This is from a general, untargeted smattering of 1,000 members of the population. That's not even a proper sample size.

    Bad journalism. Bad study report. Bad.

    --
    -- "Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability." --Dijkstra