2020, we see the largest workforce working from home. It speeds up the revolution on the new working format. DBS, Singapore’s biggest bank has also announced to allow employees to work from home up to 40% of the time as it adopts hybrid model. However, work from home brings challenges to the business – cybersecurity is top of the list.
According to a study by AT&T, out of 500 IT decision-makers across the three Asia-Pacific markets, 58% of respondents in the city-state concerned they were more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. It can be stressful while business is potentially facing cybersecurity issues. In 2017, the global economy lost USD 600 billion as a result of cybercrime. And beyond financial loss, cyber-attacks can impact businesses’ finances, reputation, operations, valuation, and staff. As cyberattacks become more sophisticated, the need for experts with the right skillsets grows. And yet, we are facing a massive talent shortage.
Cybersecurity Talent Shortage
“The cybersecurity talent shortage is mainly caused by the shift to cloud,” said Jin Han Tan, Associate Vice President of Technology at Selby Jennings Singapore. “The biggest gap now is within DevSecOps, ensuring data security and preventing data loss.”
Cybersecurity talent gap leaves Singapore firms exposed. The talent gap in cybersecurity today is not just a city issue, it’s a global issue. With the growth of the spread of digital banks and cryptocurrencies, strong cybersecurity is a MUST today for banks.
Singapore’s Hunt for Global Tech Talent
As the most important trading hubs in South East Asia, Singapore is hunting for global tech talent.
Back in 2018, Singapore has already set out its vision as a Global-Asia Node of Technology, Innovation, and Enterprise. Singapore government has adapted its labour force to the fast-growing fields, such as data science, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and fintech.
This year, Singapore announced a special visa to attract top tech entrepreneurs from across the world – Tech.Pass visa program. The scheme aims to attract “founders, leaders and technical experts with experience in established or fast-growing tech companies”. And these are the “the movers and shakers of the tech world” who can contribute their capital, networks and knowledge.
Advice to Hiring Managers
Although the government is launching new plans and strategy to try to increase the size of the talent pool, the good pool is always hard to avoid a fight.
“DevSecOps is in high demand to ensure security in the infrastructure,” said Jin. “There is a good pool of DevSecOps/infrastructure security candidates but the good ones get snapped up quickly.”
Our suggestion on working on the talent gap is to be pre-emptive rather than reactive. “Hiring managers need to move fast,” recommend by Jin. “Ideal profiles are ones with CI/CD experience (infrastructure experience)and with strong certifications in the cybersecurity space (For example, CCSP/CISM/CISSP); however, hiring managers should be slightly more open in terms of required as both identity access management and data loss prevention are niche skills.”
Steve Jobs once said that “I’ve learned over the years that, when you have really good people, you don’t have to baby them. By expecting them to do great things, you can get them to do great things.” Hiring the right business-critical talent is essential for business, if you are looking for some hiring tips and advice, contact us. Our specialist recruiters are happy to share our insights with you.
