> The US government this week announced the removal of “unnecessary degree requirements” in favor of skills-based hiring as part of an aggressive push to fill half-a-million open cybersecurity jobs.
> The ‘Serve for America’ initiative, announced by National Cyber Director Harry Coker, removes the four-year degree requirement in federal IT contracts and will push agencies to hire based on experience, certifications, and aptitude tests.
I'd guess that only a tiny fraction of the (claimed) half-a-million cybersec openings are under direct Federal control. Vs. contractors, state agencies, etc. - all of which may have their own "4 year degrees" requirements, whether formally or informally.
The requirements for federal government were put out a long time ago (some scientific role job descriptions date from the 80's). This prevented a lot of new grads who had degrees in fields that didn't exist in the 20th century to get denied or delayed as someone hired to be a sysadmin, or cyber analysis didn't have the correct number of math courses. Basically only a CS degree counted.
Don't know about state/local governments, but the ones I have heard about were all over the place: some just copied the federal rules, some just hired whoever they could find.
I would guess the beltway bandits will eventually change their requirements to match the federal gov't. They are already a little more lax in some areas (like the number of math courses). They really just want to say "our people meet your qualifications".
Federal contracts have staffing requirements, so the government does hand down education and experience requirements that the contractors must meet when staffing. If you search jobs at federal contractors they often state the position requirements from the government, it's common to see things like "Requires bachelors degree with 10 years relevant experience or 6 years with masters degree", which come straight from the government.
> The ‘Serve for America’ initiative, announced by National Cyber Director Harry Coker, removes the four-year degree requirement in federal IT contracts and will push agencies to hire based on experience, certifications, and aptitude tests.
I'd guess that only a tiny fraction of the (claimed) half-a-million cybersec openings are under direct Federal control. Vs. contractors, state agencies, etc. - all of which may have their own "4 year degrees" requirements, whether formally or informally.
Anyone familiar with this space?