Unrealistic expectations, skills gap mire market for IT security jobs

Chief information security officers report having a challenging time finding the security talent they need. However, it's not necessarily a lack of IT talent that's proving to be the challenge.

Rather, according to veteran infosec pros, the IT security job market faces a steep hill of unrealistic HR and hiring manager expectations, rapid commoditization of certain technologies, and a lack of security professionals that can adequately communicate IT security and risk to business executives.

Richard Bejtlich, chief security officer at Alexandria, Va.-based Mandiant Corp., and author of the popular TaoSecurity blog, said one of the first hurdles hit by security job seekers is the unrealistic expectations of many hiring organizations. "HR departments will get the idea that they need multi-talented experts, rather than experts in one area and generalists in most others. So they go on to create laundry lists of requirements based on the false notion that these multi-talented specialists actually exist," Bejtlich said.