On May 29th, NVC convened Regional business and academic leaders for the first in a round of exclusive meetings to identify federal, state, and local barriers to increasing the constrained availability of the cyber workforce. Facilitated by Dr. Liza Wilson Durant, Professor, Associate Provost for Strategic Initiatives and Community Engagement, George Mason University, and Dr. Jerry McGinn, Executive Director, Center for Government Contracting, George Mason University, the critical discussion focused on the challenges along the full length of the pipeline.
Participants identified strategies, goals, and potential solutions, targeting next steps to accelerate cyber workforce growth in the Region. The discussion touched on a range of challenges including the importance of alignment between hiring managers and HR. Some of these elements include the importance of soft and professional skills, core engineering skills, and looking beyond traditional sources for talent to expand the recruiting pool.
The next step is to gather federal and state stakeholders to share challenges and collaborate on solutions. The Region’s leading professionals recognize that locating talent in this highly complex field needs to be addressed for our Region to grow. To express interest in the next workshop, connect with us here.
This series has been inspired by NVC member, Peraton, who identified this Region-wide challenge. We asked our workshop leaders, “What do you think is our greatest challenge in finding and retaining cyber workforce talent in the Region?” Read their answers below.
Matt McQueen, SVP and Chief Engagement & Communications Officer, Peraton
“As a Region, we continue to have challenges finding, attracting, and retaining the cyber workforce we need to address customer demands. From my vantage point, this is due in large part to the fact we have spent years studying and talking about the problem versus actually assembling the right people to construct a real-world plan, including establishing non-traditional pipelines, to address the challenge.”
----
Dr. Liza Wilson Durant, PhD, Associate Provost, Strategic Initiatives and Community Engagement, George Mason University, and Director Commonwealth Cyber Initiative, NoVa Node
“One of the greatest challenges to meeting the cyber workforce demand is the requirement for 3-5 years of experience in entry level pay scale roles. We are working to bridge this requirement with robust internship experiences, for example, George Mason students are able to work in year-round internships and log hundreds of hours of real-world experience. Nevertheless, the demand is so great, and we need more internship and part-time opportunities, as well as investment in true entry level positions without significant prior experience requirements to provide that training ground for young cybersecurity graduates. We need that industry investment and partnership to secure Virgnia's talent pipeline.”
