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Is It True That There Is A Cybersecurity Skills Gap?
If you've been following cyber security headlines over the last several years, you've likely heard variations on the same storey: Organization are unable to attract the cyber security talent they require, resulting in millions of job openings.

Cyber Security Courses Online

If you've been following cyber security headlines over the last several years, you've likely heard variations on the same storey: Organization are unable to attract the cyber security talent they require, resulting in millions of job openings. The 'Cyber Security Skills Gap' is frequently mentioned in the news. 

How true is this, though? After all, a skills gap is a mismatch between what employers want or require from certain individuals and what those employees can actually perform when they get at work. There is a skills gap if you can't locate someone who knows how to do a penetration test. 

If a company immediately rejects individuals who have hands-on hacking expertise but don't have a certain college degree, the problem isn't so much a skills gap as it is a recruiter expectations gap.

Hiring standards that are too strict don't work for anyone. It implies that far too many qualified applications are overlooked, resulting in open positions. Fortunately, there are signs that things are changing, with an additional 700,000 employees expected to join the cyber security field in 2020 (up 25% from the previous year's estimates) after doing the cyber security course certifications. Employers are being urged to be more creative when it comes to hiring, with less focus on standard training paths and more flexibility when it comes to years of experience required.

This is actually extremely excellent news for aspiring information security professionals. You should be in a better position than ever to fill the gap if you can pivot your existing talents, bridge knowledge gaps, and pick up the sort of practical know-how that's in demand. 

Hiring Gap vs. Skills Gap 

There is talent out there. It's just that antiquated perceptions of what it means to be "qualified" create a barrier to employment. According to Christian Espinosa, Cybersecurity Engineer, who did the cyber security course. Author of "The Smartest Person in the Room," and Founder and CEO of Alpine Security, in a recent Forbes opinion post. 

A so-called skills gap is unavoidable if employers insist on a very tight wish-list of what they want from candidates. There will just be insufficient college graduates with 5 years or more of in-house experience to go around. And, according to Espinosa, the importance of theory-based college courses can easily be overestimated. Candidates may appear to be excellent on paper; they may be able to 'speak the talk,' but lack the sort of real experience that businesses want.