The Future of Cybersecurity Jobs – Mark Sasson, Pinpoint Search Group

This is texturing TV. Hey guys. Thanks for the throw.

We're here with Mark Zone who's managing director for pinpoint Search Group. They're Specialists and recruiting cybersecurity folks for vendors in particular, but we're gonna have a little chat also about what's going on with recruitment in general Mark. Welcome the shop.

To be here. Thanks for having me. There's more than a few cyber security folks out there that would want to work for vendors as well as saying users.

But is there something unique about the attributes of somebody you're looking for? Who is the Cyrus security person who winds up working for a vendor? Vendors are typically going to be competing quite a bit in the marketplace for Branding recognition.

And so regardless of what your function is going to be at a vendor you've got to be willing to understand that you're going to be part of growing company. You're gonna have to go sell a product and you don't have to be a sales person that sell a product. Can be a marketing person an engineer whatever the case may be.

You've got to meet the demands of customer. Otherwise, there's gonna be literally thousands of other vendors that go to instead of you. Are there a lot of soft skills then that you're looking for in particularly alongside the technical knowledge and what turns you off from a likely can.

Sure, there's definitely going to be soft skills required across the board because even if you're an engineer working on code every day, there's gonna be interactions that you have to have internally with Folks at our customer facing that are going to need your help. And if you can interact if you can't make things work be flexible, then most certainly It's going to be a difficult run for you in that particular organization and that role. So it's already hard enough to find cybersecurity people in general.

So how hard is it to find in some cases? It sounds like you're looking for the Unicorn the person who has cyber security expertise with all the appropriate soft skills. And yes ability to make friends with customers.

Yeah. It's it's not difficult to find them. We've got sourcing techniques LinkedIn is definitely a great resource for us.

It's more about identifying the right fit. Making sure that the folks that we're talking to for specific opportunities are going to be aligned in terms of what their career goals and what the skill sets are needed with respect to the company that's trying to hire. So it's more about aligning again career goals and and what's needed for specific organization versus just finding people to fill a job.

I'm asking these questions because it seems like more and more of the security services themselves aren't going to be managed by vendors rather than some team working for the end user. There's a lot more managed Services as a service capabilities coming out from vendors. So do you think that vendors are soon going to be at the top of the recruitment poll as it were in terms of absorbing the best talent that's out there to deliver those services.

Quite likely you are seeing a lot of mssps for example adopting stock as a service type technologies that are being adopted by organizations that simply don't have either the purchasing power or the ability to recruit the talent internally to manage their security operations. so the vendor Community is definitely going to be top of food chain. I don't want to minimize the need at the end user but I'd have to agree with your assessment there.

Are there things you would advise cybersecurity professionals to go do to make themselves more attractive to those types of recruiters or vendors? We're looking for the that level of expertise. Is there something in there resumes or background that you specifically?

To be attractive. I definitely advise optimizing your LinkedIn profile. It's the best personal and professional lead generation engine that you're going to have.

That's how you're getting found. Your resume is as good as the amount of people you send it to LinkedIn makes you identifiable people like me so that we can assess whether we should be reaching out to you for opportunities. So that's one of the best things that you can do in terms of marketing yourself and creating your own professional brand.

Do you think that cybersecurity folks that work for vendors are going to make more than they would working elsewhere? No, I don't think so. I think it's depends on what your role is going to be within a vendor versus what your role is going to be at the end user.

But if you're talking about cybersecurity or leaving the industry and going and doing a different job in some other area of tech or otherwise cyber security is one of the best paid jobs that you're going to have. Period there's intense competition. Everybody talks about the talent Gap essentially.

There's about three and a half million unfilled cybersecurity jobs globally at any given time. And you've got again 2,000 plus vendors that's not talking about the end users that are all competing for individuals with specific talents specifically and security and not just town but experience understanding the ecosystem understanding how to operate the go to market functions as well. so because of the competition basic supply and demand Theory, yeah, I mean you're gonna get paid pretty good and in this industry Do you think that AI is gonna have an impact on any of this because we hear all the time about how more the functions will be automated.

So we'll there be this big gap in demand and Supply forever or is that kind of narrow over time as Things become more out of it. not an engineer what I can say is from my experience like as technology develops, even if something gets automated that's basically mundane. Something else is gonna have to be taken over by human to manage that automation process.

There's gonna be additional components developed. the threat landscape that we all have to contend with right now is constantly developing their motivated criminals. They're motivated nation-state actors that want to find any in every way to exploit data or whatever the case may be.

and humans are going to have to find a way. To adapt constantly. So we may automate stuff that again becomes mundane, but there's gonna be another challenge and so there's going to be jobs inside your security that come up in the next decade that don't even exist today.

That's my that's my assessment. What question is there something you see job candidates doing the cyber security space consistently that more or less Torpedoes their ability to get that next job. And what is that?

What is that? Yeah, absolutely, and it's overestimating your value. while there's a talent Gap while you may be in high demand you go in to a conversation with a hiring manager or a hiring Authority any interview.

And you don't focus at least initially on selling yourself more than asking questions and being the interviewer. You're gonna get passed over. Don't turn down a job.

You haven't been offered yet. what that means is go go for the win go for the offer every single time. And then you have the opportunity to turn that off and down.

Plain and simple versus giving the interviewer or the hiring company the choice of making the decision. Give yourself that choice by getting the offer if you're not gunning for it. There's a chance someone else is and they're gonna take them over you.

All right, your biggest competitor may very well be yourself. Hey Mark. Thanks for being on the show.

thanks for having me my all right back to you guys in the studio.