In the past few years, alumni of the Israeli Defense Forces’ Unit 8200, which conducts intelligence, have become known for founding cybersecurity startups. Cybereason, my employer, falls into this camp: two of the company’s co-founders (and many of our employees) served in Unit 8200. But Unit 8200 is also known for launching the security and technology careers of many women, including mine. At 18, I was picked to serve in Unit 8200, an experience that sparked my interest in both those fields.
Despite its notoriety and success, Unit 8200 doesn’t follow a conventional recruiting model. Technical skills aren’t a requirement. Instead, traits that indicate leadership and problem-solving skills are valued. Here’s how Unit 8200 recruits are selected and trained, how those processes build women leaders and how this model can help the private sector address the security talent shortage.
When recruiting, look beyond traditional candidate profile
Traditionally, when filling entry-level security positions, organizations look for candidates with either IT or computer science backgrounds. Hiring managers want script kiddies and computer gamers to fill those jobs. But hiring people with only these profiles limits the workforce’s diversity.
In reality, men outnumber women in computer science degree programs (although it’s encouraging to read that’s changing in at least one case). In 2015, for instance, women earned 18 percent of all computer science degrees awarded in the U.S. That percentage is even lower for women of color, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Meanwhile, females who like to geek out in their free time and play video games often face harassment and abuse. Ultimately, these situations lead to low numbers of women entering the IT and security fields.
Unit 8200 knows it’s not going to find female candidates by looking for recruits with conventional backgrounds. Instead, candidates with general traits that indicate success in the security and IT fields are sought. These include critical thinking, the ability to learn skills on their own, leadership, problem-solving skills and good interpersonal skills. As for technical skills, Unit 8200’s leadership assumes that they can be acquired later.
As part of its recruiting program, Unit 8200 runs tests designed to identify individuals who can handle stressful events, are team players, can find innovative solution to various problems and, most importantly, are coachable. Recruits who pass these tests undergo extensive training that teaches them any technical information they need to know. This training is followed by on-the-job training. This approach has helped Unit 8200 have an equal number of female and male soldiers.
Managing high employee turnover rate
Losing cybersecurity talent is a chief concern at organizations. Unit 8200 is a great place to learn how to deal with high employee turnover since approximately 90 percent of its workforce only serves in the unit for five years or less. To handle this situation, Unit 8200 has a system to deal with high workforce churn.
All the unit’s soldiers serve in small squads. After finishing their training, new recruits are assigned a mentor who usually has served for about a year. That gives them enough time to acquire knowledge that’s transferable while still being aware of all the challenges a newbie faces.
There’s a set cadence for promotion and succession. After about two years the more accomplished soldiers receive officer’s training to become squad commanders. They’re replaced by the soldiers who were recruited the year before. In an environment of constant but planned turnover, capturing and sharing knowledge is key and important information is kept in secure systems.
Providing a seat at the table
Women in the workforce often feel excluded from discussions on topics that they have extensive knowledge on. But in Unit 8200, subject matter experts discuss critical military matters with top commanders, regardless of gender or how junior they are. For example, a 19-year-old female soldier briefing a Chief of General Staff in the IDF is not uncommon. This provides them with an opportunity to participate in the decision-making process, a chance that’s rarely given to females early in their careers.
Fighting impostor syndrome
Some women harbor the false belief that they’re not qualified for their jobs, despite their professional accomplishments. Called impostor syndrome, it stymies women from advancing their careers. Since Unit 8200 recruits young, untrained individuals, their ability to learn and improve their skills is emphasized, eliminating the feeling that they’re unqualified.
During training, all individuals receive daily updates on how they’re progressing with skill development. They’re routinely praised for achievements and constantly reminded about how far they’ve advanced in a short period of time. And recruits are always reminded that their unique abilities led to them being selected for their roles in the unit, increasing their confidence. The unit’s reward and promotion program, while helping motivate all the unit’s soldiers, particularly boosts the self worth of female soldiers.
What the security industry can learn from Unit 8200
In Unit 8200, diversity is welcomed. Having soldiers with different backgrounds leads to new approaches to problems. And the security industry is filled with tons of complex problems that need solutions, problems that can’t be solved if organizations only look to hire men with IT and computer science backgrounds. There aren’t enough of them. There are simply are too many security jobs to fill.
People whose experiences are unconventional shouldn’t be passed over for security jobs. The security industry (and the greater technology community) needs to realize that technical skills alone do not make a person qualified. Women who lack a technical background but possess keen problem-solving skills, great communication abilities and strong leadership qualities could be eager to pursue a security career. They just need someone to give them the opportunity.
Unit 8200 has demonstrated that its approach to finding security talent works. The private sector should take note if it hopes to diversify its security workforce, which is still dominated by men. In Israel, just 26 percent of the tech positions are held by women. And the situation isn’t much better in the U.S., where women hold 25 percent of those jobs. Gender diversity is even worse in cybersecurity: women comprise only 11 percent of the global workforce. If the methodologies used by Unit 8200 to recruit and promote females are adopted by the private sector, not only would security teams become more diverse, the security talent shortage wouldn’t be so acute.
