Tag Archives: skill

News, Training

CREST and Hack The Box partner for cyber security skills development

Hack The Box labs will provide study support for CREST exams and build a greater sense of global community

10 May 2022 CREST, the international not-for-profit cyber security accreditation and certification body is partnering with Hack The Box, a leading cybersecurity training and upskilling platform, to support CREST member professionals to develop their offensive security skills. The two organisations will provide test labs tailored towards individuals who are planning to take CREST penetration testing and red teaming examinations.

“Hack The Box will provide our members with an innovative and interactive approach to skills and competency development,” said Rowland Johnson, President of CREST. “The HTB Labs will be aligned to CREST’s internationally recognised examination framework, with labs of every level – from entry to advanced ones – being made available to the vast HTB and CREST communities. CREST Accredited organisations will have free access to entry level labs, with the option to gain access to a wider set of labs, at a reduced cost, as a result of this new partner relationship. This will not only provide better access to training for CREST exams but also helps to build a greater sense of community across our global membership.”

CREST is working with Hack The Box to map its current content against the CREST exams to create fully bespoke CREST labs, which will cover the following exams: CREST Practitioner Security Analyst (CPSA); CREST Registered Security Analyst (CRSA); CREST Registered Penetration Tester (CRT); CREST Certified Tester (CCT – Web and Infrastructure); CREST Certified Simulated Attack Specialist (CCSAS) and CREST Certified Simulated Attack Manager (CCSAM).

“We are looking forward to working closely with the CREST team and members to develop the CREST learning and skills development community,” said Nikos Fountas, Director of Operations at Hack The Box. “The labs will have content similar to that assessed in CREST exams but not the same and will be provided in HTB’s unrivalled gamified and fully intuitive platform. This means that using Hack The Box will help indicate if someone is at the right level to take and pass the exam but will not assess everything in the exam. Candidates will always need to join lots of previously unconnected dots and reach higher if they are going to pass the high-level CREST exams. This will be just the beginning of a long-term partnership, with more and exciting projects to be planned and announced soon.”

Data, News

New Research Shows IT Leaders Need to Upskill Teams to Extract Value from Data

  • Nearly two thirds (65%) of IT leaders globally think they need to invest in data capability skills within their teams to extract value from data.
  • Over three quarters (78%) of IT leaders in North American businesses recognise a need to increase employee data competency, compared with 63% of Latin American businesses, 55% of European businesses and 48% of Asian businesses.

Dublin, 27 April, 2022 – New research from Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR) the largest global provider of cloud- and carrier-neutral data centers, colocation and interconnection solutions, today reveals that 65% of IT leaders from some of the world’s biggest businesses say they need to increase the data competency of their teams to remain competitive and extract value from data [1]. This increases to 78% when focusing on North American businesses, compared to 63% for Latin American businesses, 55% for European businesses and 48% for Asian businesses.

The importance of upskilling teams as a business-critical move out-performed AI investment (59%) and was the second most popular response amongst those surveyed when asked what the most important factor was for their companies in the next two years to enable more data-driven insights. Additionally, over one in five (21%) IT leaders globally highlighted that the lack of internal talent to analyse data, and the lack of talent to build technical capacity (21%), are among the greatest obstacles their organisations are facing when drawing insights from their data.

A wider issue

Crucially, IT leaders’ teams need to have the skills to unlock value from data and make data-driven strategies a priority if they want to stay competitive in an increasingly data centric world. Digital Realty’s research revealed that three quarters (75%) of >$1B companies do now have a formal data strategy in the planning, adoption or execution stage. This compares to 63% of global companies, suggesting that larger companies are operating slightly ahead of the curve from a data perspective, something which is likely to give them an advantage over smaller competitors as the amount of data grows and Data Gravity becomes a bigger challenge.

“As the volume of data grows exponentially across the world, the Data Gravity effect is inevitably going to intensify, particularly if employees do not have the skills to effectively process the data,” explains Séamus Dunne, Managing Director, at Interxion, a Digital Realty company. “This phenomenon sees large volumes of data continually attracting more data, making it impossible to move, manipulate or extract value from it. This creates barriers for businesses and rather than data being an enabler, it can have the opposite effect.

“Digital Realty understands the growing challenges business leaders face, which is why we’ve built PlatformDIGITAL®, our first of its kind global data center platform, to meet the ever-changing data, control and networking demands of global enterprises and help them realise new, data-first strategies.”

Looking ahead

The research shows that 17% of IT leaders expect data-driven insights to help them attract more talent in the future, suggesting that people will be drawn to organisations using data efficiently. This is likely to lead to a cumulative effect, with the more data savvy enterprises attracting more employees with data skills and building their competitive advantage.

[1] The Digital Realty research surveyed over 7,200 IT leaders from $100m – $1B+ revenue businesses across every sector and across 23 countries to understand the priorities of those leading digital strategy and transformation at the world’s largest companies.

News, Recruitment

Scrap the CV! Existing hiring methods exacerbating the UK’s skills crisis and social mobility divide, research reveals

  • Survey finds 88% screen out candidates because of a lack of experience, yet 67% say screening for experience reduces size and diversity of their talent pool
  • Arctic Shores CEO calls for organisations to “scrap the CV” and select for potential to address the skills mismatch crisis and social mobility divide

Manchester, UK; 26th April 2022: 88% of HR and talent managers have screened candidates out of their hiring process because of a lack of experience, yet 67% say selecting for experience reduces the size and diversity of their talent pool, further exacerbating the skills crisis.

That’s according to a survey by Arctic Shores, the psychometric assessment pioneer, which has identified that outdated hiring methods are shrinking talent pools and hampering diversity. It also costs organisations money, with 72% currently paying higher salaries in order to find candidates with the right experience.

Time to make the leap: embrace potential over experience

Experience is undoubtedly a key factor in whether a candidate is hired, with 91% of respondents identifying experience as a useful way to establish whether a candidate will suit their roles. In light of this, 68% currently use CVs as their first method of screening for experienced hires.

However, the majority (78%) believe a lack of relevant skills and candidate experience will inhibit their ability to achieve strategic objectives and/or financial goals in the next 24 months. By relying on past experience rather than the potential that a candidate shows, organisations are taking a financial and strategic hit.

The World Economic Forum has also warned that 85 million jobs will disappear and 97 million new digital-first jobs will arise by 2025.

Robert Newry, CEO of Arctic Shores, commented: “What we’re seeing isn’t a skills shortage, it’s a skills blindness. We live in a world with millions of capable workers yet companies are stressing about escalating salaries and an inability to fill roles. The issue is that everyone is playing musical chairs, poaching those with experience from other companies, who in turn poach from someone else. The only way organisations will get out of this costly spiral is to start hiring for transferable skills and potential.”

Scrapping the CV

Whereas the majority of hiring managers use CVs as their chosen method to screen out candidates, more than half (59%) have considered removing CVs from their hiring process altogether.

When it came to reasons why CVs hadn’t been removed from the process, 65% of respondents were blocked by the belief of a lack of viable replacements, hiring manager objections, and a lack of time and resources. Removing the CV feels like ‘hard work’ for many, with the perception that there are no viable alternatives. Only 27% use psychometric assessments in their hiring processes.

“Scrapping the CV might sound radical, but you cannot solve tomorrow’s challenges with yesterday’s solutions,” added Newry. “What we’re calling for is an awareness of the challenge we face and for the start of a transition to futureproof the UK’s workforce.”

There is already evidence that an alternative approach can be taken and with great results. Darren Cassidy, Managing Director of Xerox UK and Ireland, is one of the early adopters of a Scrap the CV approach: “At Xerox, we have always looked to hire people based on their potential, where diversity, inclusion and belonging are core to our culture. So we are excited about our pioneering partnership with Arctic Shores to select for potential. My team has seen how the platform can identify potential from a candidate pool who haven’t had the best start in life and bypass the need to see a CV, which too often holds back those who have had the least opportunity. This is definitely the way forward.”