IT & Cybersecurity Talent Needs: San Diego

 CyberHire San Diego  is a collaborative initiative to address skilled talent shortages and increase diversity in high-growth, high-demand jobs. The initiative is helping San Diego meet its inclusive growth goals by strengthening relationships between local industry, job seekers, and education systems. Better alignment between these systems means the region can collectively prepare San Diegans for high-demand jobs, and local employers – many of which are small companies – can establish and expand recruitment relationships with locally-serving education institutions. 

CyberHire San Diego is made possible by:

• To increase the number of underrepresented workers in quality cybersecurity careers, moving workers from low-wage jobs into careers with advancement opportunities and family sustaining wages.

• To establish a public-private partnership that will enable the Workforce Partnership to unlock and draw down otherwise inaccessible public funds, thereby building a renewable funding model for program sustainability.

• Provide a snapshot of cyber talent demand in San Diego
• Outline skills-criteria for entry-level cyber talent
• Solicit applications for Preferred Providers of Technology & Cybersecurity Talent

CyberHire works with employers to develop skills-based criteria for high-demand jobs, identify education programs as “Preferred Providers” aligned with those skills criteria, and provides students of those programs industry engagement opportunities and internships with small companies. Led by the San Diego Workforce Partnership, CyberHire is a collaboration with San Diego Regional EDC and the Cyber Center of Excellence.

This report is not meant to reflect the needs of all employers, but outline fundamental skills requirements for entry-level technology & cybersecurity talent, as informed by employers in San Diego. By sharing this information, we hope to identify Preferred Providers of Technology/Cybersecurity Talent: education programs that equip individuals with the skills employers look for in tech talent. If your program is training for the skills outlined in this report, we encourage you to apply as a Preferred Provider of Technology & Cybersecurity Talent.

Applications are now open.

Over the course of three months, the San Diego Workforce Partnership, Cyber Center of Excellence and EDC worked with a group of 8 San Diego employers with a shared need for technology and cybersecurity talent.  

The Employer Working Group was tasked with developing consensus about fundamental skill requirements for entry-level technology and cybersecurity roles. This process required distinguishing between individual company hiring requirements and common occupational skill sets, ultimately resulting in a list of skills that all employers agreed are critical for entry-level business talent to demonstrate to be successful in these roles.

We anticipate that by sharing these insights from industry about critical skills, we will collectively strengthen local pipelines of technology/cybersecurity talent and increase the number of San Diegans from diverse backgrounds in high-demand jobs.

When convening the Employer Working Group, we had several goals:

1. Ensure diverse representation of industry. Technology/cybersecurity talent is critical across disciplines, and only by ensuring representation from a variety of industries would the Employer Working Group be able to discuss cross-cutting skill requirements, excluding industry-specific requirements and specializations.
2. Ensure diverse representation of businesses by company size. Large companies with a substantial workforce provide insight at scale and often have well-developed and sophisticated talent management programs. Considering that 98% of San Diego businesses are small companies (less than 100 employees), and they employ roughly 59% of our workforce, we have a responsibility to capture small company perspectives as well. These companies offer a critical perspective for skills-based hiring, and can offer different approaches and attitudes toward talent. 
3. Work with companies who hire regularly for tech roles. Even as COVID-19 response strategies caused many companies to slow or pause hiring, these companies had recently hired and/or had active listings for talent, with the intent to continue hiring for technology/cybersecurity roles.

Participating employers collectively have 860 information technology and cybersecurity positions and expressed a projected need for 141 positions over the next three years.

About the companies:

The San Diego Workforce Partnership and EDC leveraged labor market data and the expertise of hiring managers and human resources representatives to develop a list of critical business functions in the areas of information technology and cybersecurity.To effectively survey employers on hiring projections, we translated a list of Standard Occupation Classification codes into actual job titles used commonly in cybersecurity job postings. The Employer Working Group vetted this initial listing, and refined our scope to include the roles most critical to driving the information technology and cybersecurity functions within their organizations. We then collected hiring projects for these roles at the entry- mid- and senior-level.

The following data represents the collective growth and hiring projections for the 8 employers engaged in the Employer Working Group over the next three years.

The CyberHire Employer Working Group originally focused on the following roles:

However, the CyberHire Employer Working Group narrowed the focus to two areas:

1. Entry-Level Information Technology (Feeder Roles):

• Technical Support Specialist / Help Desk Technician
• Network / Systems Administrator

2. Entry-Level Security & Cybersecurity Roles:

• System Testing and Evaluation Specialist / Systems Engineer
• Cybersecurity Risk / Defense Analyst

The occupations the CyberHire Employer Working Group decided not to move forward were:

CyberHire Employer Working Group decided to evaluate and designate Preferred Providers of Talent by clustering roles into two levels. The first level traits for IT talent that might feed to cyber careers and/or other IT careers (more general focus), and the second level trains for IT Talent with a focus on cybersecurity specialization (e.g Entry-Level Security and Cybersecurity Roles).

Two Areas of Focus: 

1. Information Technology (IT) Talent (feeder roles):

• Technical Support Specialist / Help Desk Technician
• Network / Systems Administrator

The feeder roles above are entry-level tech roles that employers consider prerequisites for candidates moving into cyber-specific occupations. Though they are not rated as particularly difficult to source, and though many of the employers indicated they outsource for this function at their organization, training local talent in these areas increases the funnel of candidates that will move on to more advanced careers. NIWC Pacific hires a significant number of these roles, and others reported high turnover as incumbent workers advance in their careers. Investing in these roles will also support hiring with smaller companies that don’t outsource this function.

Employers reported entry-level job titles in these categories as:

This Preferred Provider Designation will focus on the shared group of skills across these roles/occupations at the entry-level, so that a Preferred Provider of Information Technology (IT) Talent would, in theory, be adequately preparing students for any one of the above roles, with the acknowledgement that specific certifications may vary depending on which specific occupation a student was interested in.

2. Entry-Level Security & Cybersecurity Talent

• System Testing and Evaluation Specialist / Systems Engineer
• Cybersecurity Risk / Defense Analyst

Entry-Level Security & Cybersecurity Talent: these roles are beginning to specialize in security and cybersecurity, and by training talent in these areas, we can focus on participants that either have the general IT experience and are going back to school, and/or are incumbent workers that want to upskill into entry-level cyber roles and advance within their organizations.

Employers reported entry-level job titles in these categories as:

This Preferred Provider Designation will focus on the shared group of skills across these roles/occupations at the entry-level, specifically the core skills required for IT Talent, plus some specific cybersecurity and/or intermediate training or certifications.

Skills Requirements for Entry-Level IT & Cybersecurity Talent

Once these areas of high demand for technology/cybersecurity talent were established, we used real-time labor market data, employer feedback, and job descriptions to compile a list of common and emerging competencies required for entry-level information technology (IT) and cyber talent. 

We surveyed the CyberHire Employer Working Group on how important these skills were for entry-level positions at their organizations. The survey included both employability (soft) skills and hard skills, as well as the cross-cutting skills employers had identified earlier as critical to tech roles. Employers were asked to rate the skills on how important they were and whether the skills were expected upon hiring, taught on the job, or a combination of the two. 

The results of the survey indicated that nearly a dozen skills were rated as "very important" to all entry-level business roles, regardless of whether they were associated with operations or engagement. 

Note: While the results from this employer working group do not represent an exhaustive study of all San Diego businesses and their hiring requirements, it is worth emphasizing that these employers, representing 8 different companies, were solidly aligned in their evaluation. 

These 6 skills were identified as a core set of requirements for entry-level IT and Cybersecurity talent. Employers firmly communicated that for the majority of their entry-level tech roles, procedural adherence and research abilities were key for a candidate to demonstrate in order to be successful. 

The ability to operate with a data-driven mindset is critical for roles across the organization, and shows up in skills such as problem-solving and detail orientation.

The ability to problem solve, at all levels and across disciplines, is an expected competency at many organizations.

Communication skills are foundational to these tech roles, and is also a core competency that shows up in other skill areas, such as collaboration and customer focus.

“Cyber needs to be a component of every industry. In the near future, being a ‘Cyber firm’ will be a foregone conclusion; every company will need to consider having a Cyber emphasis regardless of industry."

- Navid Alipour, Managing Partner, Analytics Ventures

In addition to this core set of skills, tech companies are hiring individuals with information technology and cybersecurity certificates.

The two different career paths required two different certifications.

Information Technology (IT) talent:

• Required: Network+ and A+
• Preferred: ITIL, Security+, CCNA, CEH, CSSLP, SSCP, CWTS

Security & Cybersecurity talent:

• Required: Security+
• Preferred: Network+, CEH, CISA, CCNA, GCIA, ITIL, CSSLP, SSCP, A+ 

Building on the core set of skills outlined above, Information Technology (IT) roles required these skills: 

Employers found that the following are preferred skills for employees looking for a role in Information Technology (IT) talent: 

For Security & Cybersecurity Talent, the employers reported that all the technical skills presented to them in the survey are required for hiring.

This working group and the critical skills outlined above inform the criteria for designating Preferred Providers of cybersecurity talent in San Diego.

Education and training providers are invited to apply to become a Preferred Provider of IT & Cybersecurity talent by describing how they are teaching each of the skills outlined in this report. The designation is offered at two levels:

Entry-Level Information Technology (Feeder Roles)

• Technical Support Specialist / Help Desk Technician
• Network / Systems Administrator

Entry-Level Security & Cybersecurity Roles

• System Testing and Evaluation Specialist / Systems Engineer
• Cybersecurity Risk / Defense Analyst

Learn more about the Preferred Provider designation  here . 

Applications to become a Preferred Provider are open.

• Increase in program enrollment
• Public recognition through EDC's marketing channels, and feature on EDC's Preferred Provider map
• Work-based learning opportunities for students including networking events, career, and internship fairs
• Annual briefings on talent demand alongside local employers

For questions about the Preferred Provider designation, please contact John Valencia at john@goodforothers.org. 

With the San Diego Workforce Partnership as a facilitator, and the assistance of EDC and Cyber Center of Excellence, working group members participated in a structured process over three months to communicate collective demand and strengthen the local pipeline of business talent in San Diego. For this process, the Workforce Partnership leveraged a nationally recognized framework designed by the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation called  Talent Pipeline Management , which applies supply chain management strategies to development of stronger talent pipelines for companies.

Special thanks to all of our Technology/Cybersecurity working group members:

Lisa Easterly, President & CEO, Cyber Center of Excellence

Chris Waskiewicz, Chief Engineer / Senior Associate, Booz Allen Hamilton

Alexa Montgomery, Talent Acquisition Lead, Booz Allen Hamilton

Chad Nelley, Executive Vice President of Operations, ESET

Amber Jones, Recruitment Specialist, ESET

Chris McGuire, Cybersecurity Engineer, Sentek Global

Cori Galvan, Talent Acquisition Specialist, Sentek Global

Joey Tompkins, Talent Acquisition Manager, Sentek Global

Brandon Brooks, Senior Technical Recruiter, Teradata

Jesse Raymond, Senior Manager Security Operations, Teradata

Jon Mui, Cybersecurity Manager , City of San Diego

Cory Barefield, Supervising Human Resources Analyst, City of San Diego

Peaches Howell, Senior HR Analyst, City of San Diego

Dan Constantineau, Chief Information Security Officer, San Diego County Water Authority

Noemi (Mimi) Rosado, Corporate Programs Deputy, NIWC Pacific

Kevin Chung, Recruiter Cybersecurity Engineering Division, NIWC Pacific

Angie Hanson, Total Force Director, NIWC Pacific

Jara Tripiano, Head of Cybersecurity Engineering Division, NIWC Pacific

Sophia Nasrallah, Senior Executive Recruiter ITS, UCSD