OPM to define the cybersecurity job

It's one thing to talk about increasing the ranks of cybersecurity professionals. It's another to figure out what it is. The Office of Personnel Management is taking a stab at defining the job in a move to help federal departments and agencies recruit and retain IT security experts.

The federal government is now in the difficult situation of figuring out just what constitutes a cybersecurity position. Does it require a degree and prior work experience? And how does a candidate know just what it takes to do the job?

In a memo last week, OPM director John Berry unveiled the plan to identify critical elements of a cybersecurity workforce. "Because cybersecurity work is performed in many different positions and places throughout the federal government, it is not easy to identify them by looking solely at job titles or organization charts," Berry wrote in the memo.

Berry asked chief human capital officers to provide his office by Jan. 15 documents that describe IT security positions, vacancy announcements, crediting plans, training plans, performance management plans and any studies or competency models of cybersecurity work in their departments or agencies.

By late spring, Berry said he hopes have subject matter experts review draft task and competency lists. Then potential job applicants will know where they stand.

It's a tough problem for the federal government and its recruiters. A report last summer by the not-for-profit Partnership for Public Service and the management consultancy firm Booz Allen Hamilton said the lack of occupational classification for IT security hampers recruiting and retention.

"How they are classified impacts managers' ability to bring in people with the right skills, but government is operating with an outdated and often vague job classification scheme for information security," the report states.

"One of government's computer science job categories was last updated in 1988, before the Internet was even invented. In addition, there are no uniform governmentwide certification standards for specific jobs categories, no federal career path for cybersecurity specialists, insufficient specialized training for workers to upgrade skills and salary caps that lag the private sector," it adds.

For more on defining the cybersecurity job:
- see this GovInfoSecurity.com article

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