Jeanette Hanna-Ruiz, associate chief information officer for IT security and senior agency information security official at NASA, believes federal cybersecurity hiring must include efforts to tap into a diverse pool of talent, Federal News Radio reported Monday.
Hanna-Ruiz told an event hosted by Government Executive and Nextgov in Washington, D.C. that the hiring process for the cyber workforce needs to consider factors beyond the job description, Meredith Somers reports.
She said the government needs people with both technical skills and ability to communicate in specific subject matter areas, according to the report.
Cord Chase, chief information security officer at the Office of Personnel Management, also told the event that the OPM has seen new applicants with backgrounds outside the computer science curriculum since the 2015 data breach at the agency, the station reports.
“A lot of the schooling they were doing didn’t reflect what their actual passion and hobby was, which was cybersecurity,†Chase said, according to the report.
Chase said the OPM looks for applicants with both operational and governance backgrounds, Somers reports.
