Curiosity, patience, time management, and being willing to speak up are some of the characteristics women will find helpful in a cybersecurity career, say women in the field.<\/p>\n
They gave that advice Tuesday during an online careers panel discussion at an International Women Cyber Day Symposium. Traditionally, International Women in Cyber Day<\/a> is observed on September 1st of each year, but many groups hold separate events during the month.<\/p>\n Some think that IT skills are most important for a career in the sector. But the women on this panel said otherwise.<\/p>\n For example, Yesenia Yser, a principal product security engineer at Red Hat<\/a> and co-founder of Latinas in Cyber, said time management is a skill that has been vital in her career.<\/p>\n \u201cCybersecurity is a very high-stress, fast-paced environment,\u201d she said, \u201cso being able to manage your time and keep up with the latest and greatest,\u201d is important. Self-development, continuous learning, and keeping your curiosity are also useful, she said.<\/p>\n The ability to lead without authority, she added, meaning \u201cbeing able to drive change when you have no authority or say, trying to persuade [others] the reasoning and the impact the new change is going to have\u201d is a key skill. And, she added, that skill goes with building relationships: \u201cYou can\u2019t make those changes if people don\u2019t trust you,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Natalie Maggitt, chief executive officer of the website iThriveHer,<\/a> which is aimed at exposing women to science, technology and math, said curiosity is the leading skill that has helped her. A background in human resources has also been a big aid in working with others, she said.<\/p>\n While her current positions aren\u2019t technical, she added, she is studying for the CompTIA Security+ certificate to broaden her career options.<\/p>\n Susanne Tedrick, a technical trainer at Microsoft, author of Women of Color in Tech<\/em>, and co-author of the upcoming book Innovating for Diversity<\/em>, said getting the career you want requires planning, skill building, and getting the help of mentors and sponsors.<\/p>\n Raeann Rideout, director of strategic partnerships at Elder Abuse Prevention Ontario<\/a>, where, among other things, she counsels seniors on how to avoid being victimized by online fraud, said being outgoing has been central for communicating knowledge. Like the others, she also said a willingness to keep up with change is important. \u201cIf you\u2019re not willing to learn what\u2019s out there, you can\u2019t pass that information to others.\u201d<\/p>\n Rideout also said patience should be in everyone\u2019s personal toolkit. It not only takes time to learn, it also takes time for people you deal with to learn as well.<\/p>\n Determination is also necessary, suggested Ndey Touray of Touray Tech Solutions, an IT firm in Gambia. She was told IT is a male bastion. \u201cI proved them wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n Several on the panel said it\u2019s not necessarily a prerequisite to have an IT or security certification to have a career in cybersecurity. Learning on the job is a way many \u2014 including men \u2014 have built careers, they said.<\/p>\n \u201cAs long as you have a foundation\u201d in IT or cybersecurity, that can go a long way, said Yser. \u201cI tell a lot of folks I mentor, \u2018Get a Github account, come up with a project and work on it. When you go to a job interview you can talk about a project you\u2019ve been coding\u2019. You show your skill in a different fashion.\u201d Certifications may be important for some positions, but what can be more important is \u201cto present that you\u2019re actually going to make a difference and impact as an asset to that company.\u201d<\/p>\n In a separate session, Julia Le, senior manager of the Ontario government\u2019s Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence, said public-private-academic partnerships will be a key way to increase the participation of women and minorities in cybersecurity. She gave as an example the accelerated cybersecurity training program for women<\/a> offered by Toronto Metropolitan University\u2019s Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst. It\u2019s supported by Rogers Communications, the Royal Bank and the federal government.<\/p>\n Also at the event, Sylvia Gellman, now 101, who worked as a typist during the Second World War at Canada\u2019s first code-breaking agency, was given an International Women in Cyber Day Founders Award for her work. The federal government publicly recognized<\/a> the secret work of what was called the Examination Unit in August.<\/p>\n Several speakers noted that, according to a 2021 survey, women make up less than 25 per cent of the global cybersecurity workforce at a time when there is a shortage of cybersecurity staff.<\/p>\n The event was organized by the Canadian-based Women CyberSecurty Society<\/a>.<\/p>\n The post Soft skills are vital for women to succeed, says cybersecurity panel<\/a> first appeared on IT World Canada<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Time management and being able to drive change were among the skills women speakers said have been vaulable in the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,30],"tags":[520,391,651,396,393,275,658],"class_list":["post-28796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security","category-women-in-tech","tag-canadiancio","tag-di","tag-international-women-in-cyber-day","tag-postmedia","tag-security-strategies","tag-top-story","tag-women-in-it"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28796"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28847,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28796\/revisions\/28847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}