Posted on the 10th of March, 2022.

Interviewing and hiring in the cybersecurity field can be tricky, but with the right screening in place, leaders and hiring managers can determine whether or not a candidate is a good fit. Here’s a more in-depth look at the three competencies to look for while hiring new employees.

1. Cognitive Competence

This competency might be the easiest to screen for because there are clear certifications in place. There are seemingly endless cybersecurity professional certifications achieved through studying, training and testing that can be helpful for candidates to showcase specific technical knowledge.

At a very basic level, a cybersecurity professional should understand the architecture, administration, and management of operating systems, like Linux distros and Windows, networking and virtualization software. This is on top of general programming/software development concepts and software analytics skills that are the foundation of any cybersecurity professional foundational knowledge.

These types of skills are measured and accounted for with popular certifications like the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP), Certified Information Security Auditor (CISA), Lead Pentest Professional (PECB) and GIAC Certified Incident Handler (GCIH).

When looking for a candidate in a specific sub-discipline in cybersecurity, certifications are a smart way to weed out those that aren’t qualified for a position. For many government roles or civilian contractor positions, certifications and specific trainings are required for employment. This is generally a smart idea as it ensures foundational knowledge in a candidate, but it’s critical to remember that certifications shouldn’t be the only factor when deciding whether or not to hire someone.

2. Functional Competence

In addition to technical knowledge, it’s important to make sure candidates have implementation skills. It’s one thing to read and understand about a concept, but it’s quite another to actually know how to navigate a network or code.

As technical career site Dice explains, “Any good cybersecurity pro knows how to examine a company’s security setup from a holistic view, including threat modeling, specifications, implementation, testing, and vulnerability assessment… But it’s not just about understanding; it’s also about implementation. They study the architecture of systems and networks, then use that information to identify the security controls in place and how they are used. Same with weaknesses in databases and app deployment.”

3. Social Competence

A well-rounded cybersecurity professional not only has technical and functional competencies, but also social competence. Not only can they understand and execute a task, they can explain it clearly and effectively to others.

In fact, as education platform Springboard astutely puts it, “In the event of a cyber attack, a security analyst must communicate the problem and coordinate an incident response with other members of the security team. Remedial actions must be documented, and possible solutions must be clearly presented to management. Communication skills also play a vital role in facilitating training to address security policy and protocol.”

Cybersecurity professionals must interact across all verticals in a company to achieve their security goals. This requires constant interaction and communication. Finding a candidate that has excellent soft skills, like the ability to clearly articulate complex concepts in writing and verbally, and active listening, can make or break a team’s ability to function at its highest level.

Social competency is crucial when hiring cybersecurity leaders and executives as well. These specific roles need to be tech-savvy enough to understand the details being discussed by his team, and also able to communicate the complicated messages to clients, stakeholders and upper management.

Cybersecurity professionals with all three competencies are hard to come by, and when a company hires one, they usually do what they can to keep them. Keep this in mind as you recruit and hire your next specialist.

Original article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/03/10/why-you-need-to-hire-cybersecurity-professionals-with-three-dimensional-competency/?sh=23d9b49710db