Shared Insights During Cybersecurity Recruitment Seminar

On 25 June, HSD Office organised the Cybersecurity Recruitment Seminar together with Security Academy, NCOI/Computrain, ROC Mondriaan, Cyber Security Academy and The Hague University of Applied Sciences. This initiative is a result of the Human Capital Programme Security á la Carte. The seminar was hosted to take a closer look at the challenges businesses face when attracting and developing cybersecurity professionals, and what can ultimately be done to meet the continually increasing demand of cybersecurity professionals.

Led by chairwoman from the Platform for Information Security (PvIB), Jessica Conquet, the seminar kicked off with an on-stage dialogue of cybersecurity professional Laura Sumajow (EY), Patrick Schreuder (CVW), and Ton van Brienen (NCOI Group). The diverse group of professionals demonstrated that their different educational and work backgrounds is certainly not a disadvantage when working in the cybersecurity domain.

After Innovation Liaison Mark Ruijsendaal (HSD Office) dived deeper into the human capital problem on the basis of several studies (Human Capital Agenda, Education and Labour Market in the Security Domain, Occupations Radar for Safety & Security and Wanted Security Professionals), Rick Strijbos (Security Academy) offered directions for improvement of the recruitment process in the shape of a ‘cookbook’ that was handed out. These directions included the training of personnel, retraining people with different backgrounds, better job descriptions, career development, outsourcing and task automation. With the recent signing of the Human Capital South-Holland agreement, new solutions are also under development.

The seminar concluded with an informal work session where participants used the cookbook to exchange their own ideas about how to improve the cybersecurity recruitment process. Several participants agreed that a follow up of the seminar would be highly appreciated.

Want to get involved in one of the many initiatives to find or develop cybersecurity personnel? Want to expand the reach of your recruitment efforts for instance through securitytalent.nl or the International Cyber Security Summer School? Or are you interested in the cookbook? Drop us a line at mark.ruijsendaal@thehaguesecuritydelta.com.