Dark Reading Radio: The Real Reason Security Jobs Remain Vacant

Woe is you. You're desperately looking for someone to fill that vacant security position -- to protect your company and to soothe the other hellishly overworked security staff -- but you cannot find anyone qualified for the position.

You may be feeling bad for yourself, but here's the thing: It's all your fault.

Want to know why it's your fault and how to fix it? Then join us tomorrow -- Wednesday, May 28 -- at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time for the next episode of Dark Reading Radio: "The Real Reason You Can't Fill Vacant Security Jobs."

My guests will be Julie Peeler, head of the ISC(2) foundation, and Mark Aiello, president of Boston-based cyber security staffing firm Cyber360 Solutions. In this episode we will discuss some of the findings of the security section of the InformationWeek IT Salary Survey and explain what they mean to you. Such as:

Security professionals earn more than the average IT worker. The median base salary of IT staff overall is $88,000 annually, compared with $98,000 for security staff. The base salaries of managers are $112,000 and $125,000, respectively. Maybe you are having trouble finding or keeping security staff because you're not paying them enough.

None of the security managers who responded to the survey and only 3 percent of the security staff respondents are age 25 or under. Seventy-eight percent of staff and 87 percent of managers are ages 36 and over. The median number of years that the survey respondents (security staff and management alike) have spent working in the IT profession (security or otherwise) is 18. If you think that you're going to find security professionals in their early 20s who have CISSPs and degrees from prestigious four-year colleges, who will work for $50,000 a year, you are sorely mistaken. Young talent is out there -- maybe you just aren't looking in the right places.

Two-thirds of both staff and managers say they are at least satisfied with their jobs, if not “very satisfied.” And yet 45 percent of staff and 44 percent of managers are looking for new jobs to some degree. Security staff feel so secure in their jobs that they feel confident asking for more money and benefits. If your security pros keep leaving for better jobs, maybe you aren't trying hard enough to retain them.

This will be an essential conversation for anyone who hires security staff and a valuable discussion for everyone in security who wants a better idea of what they're really worth (and how to make sure they get every penny of it).

So register now and join us Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Have questions for the guests? Share them in the comments section below or bring them along to the show Wednesday -- we'll be taking questions from the live audience and the guests will join the audience in a live text chat following the broadcast.