Thread by @AccidentalCISO

Hiring for entry-level roles presents an interesting challenge that I hadn’t anticipated, though, in hindsight, I should have.

When prior experience isn’t required, and there is significant interest in the role, narrowing down candidates to interview is a real problem. 1/x

https://twitter.com/accidentalciso/status/1435308450469326850

With “senior” roles, we can look for specific experience or skills to compare resumes and test against some minimum bar. We can look at the types of that orgs candidates have worked for, and what achievements they choose to highlight.

But for entry-level, when prior InfoSec experience is not required, and education, certifications, or other prior experience is looked at as a whole, it becomes much more difficult.

When we speak with a candidate, we can begin to gauge attitude, aptitude, communication skills, problem solving skills, creativity, and so-on. But… we have to decide which candidates, out of potentially hundreds, that we will speak to.

The information available to us immediately is whether or not they followed directions and included a cover page, the quality of writing in the cover page, the presentation of the resume, and spelling/grammar. It tells us little about what we are actually looking to know.

We can make some initial decisions based on those things to narrow the field, but when there are still dozens upon dozens of viable candidates remaining, well, therein lies the problem!

Comparing two candidates’ experience on resumes alone, one in retail and one in hospitality, or another two candidates, one with a cyber degree but no work experience, and one with a certification and two years of tangential work experience, none clearly edge out the others.

We know that asking candidates to complete tasks on their own time as part of the process adds friction to the process and disproportionately affects underrepresented groups. That is a non-starter.

Score cards can be used once you select the candidates to speak with, and they have the opportunity to show you how amazing they are, but how do we get to that point for true entry-level roles?

How do we ensure that roles created with the express intent to offer them to entry-level candidates actually go to entry-level candidates? Hiring experienced people into those roles, below market rates for their experience, is yet another problem in and of itself.

I don’t have a solution yet, but I need to come up with one. Interviewing 5-8 candidates could be manageable, but interviewing dozens of candidates for every role won’t scale.

Abandoning true entry-level roles is also off-the table.

So, what am I missing? What is your approach? If your org is committed to hiring and developing entry-level candidates, how do you handle it? How do you narrow down the pool of applicants, fairly and transparently? If you are a candidate, what would you suggest? x/x