Can Cybersecurity Work From Home

Is cybersecurity a suitable job to work from home? Of course there is, but as with always with answers this one also has a big ‘if.” The answer to that question can presumably vary depending on the specialty of cyber security that one intends to pursue and of course the necessity of the employer.

Before we go any further, let’s address this frequently asked question. Of course, the profession of cyber security analyst doesn’t necessarily mean that one has to go to work! Now, there are some factors that the employer takes into consideration before considering whether the particular security position will be remotely accessed. Let’s take a look.

Do not worry because cyber security jobs are available even for working from home. Unfortunately, some employers still expect their employees to be at the workplace throughout the day. But, if you persist and keep on job hunting, you will eventually get an employer who will entertain your application to work from home.

As I went through my hunt on Indeed, you are hunting, you will realize that about 75% of employment openings in cyber security expect you to work on location. This makes the search for remote jobs sound nearly impossible but that’s not entirely true. Often, it is possible simply to inquire from the employer whether s/he will agree to let a particular employee work from home.

Either way, this still puts the figure at closer to 25 percent of cybersecurity job opportunities that allow employees to work from home. In the next few sections we will examine some of the challenges that are likely to be encountered when attempting to do cyber security work from a remote location.

The first major challenge consists in the fact that some employers and clients are still used to specific traditional forms of interaction with a professional (i.e. Such messages include phrases like “We’d like you in the office!”

There are probably some advantaged for on-site communication, but this should not be a priority just for the pleasure of the employer or the client. However, before you quickly point the finger at your employer, it may not always lie with them. The extreme kind of clients will demand the freelancer to present themselves onsite by your employer’s contract.

However, the pandemic made most of the clients and employers accept working from home in order to conduct their businesses. Whether it has long or short life span still depends on time but the employer is seeing eye to eye with the hybrid work model.

To get an ideal of just how quick the cyber security work environment has evolved, previous to the covid-19 pandemic, 57% of security experts used to have to go into the workplace. Today, about 17% of them are expected to work onsite while the rest, 83% telecommute. Even better, fully flexible, or partially flexible 83% of security work is done with a hybrid schedule or in a fully remote manner!

That’s where collaboration is not a meeting and be creative as work on ideas or projects together!

Security work basic condition is that everyone is working in unison to manage security threats. This can refer to the development of reports, documents, and handling of mitigation techniques, coding or configuration setups amongst other items in groups. Therefore, one can easily understand that the working remotely is difficult for some of the workers, who need friendly communication.

Although the use of collaborative platforms (teleworking tools such as Zoom, WebEx, etc.) has been enhanced, collaborating has not changed for the better. What’s worse? One survey of 61,182 of Microsoft’s global workers demonstrated that extended telecommuting results in detrimental outcomes on cohesiveness and innovation.

In other words, if the extent of the required team interaction is very high then working on these platforms is going to be counter-productive. But if the role is not heavily dependent on communication and collaboration you should expect that the position is fully remote.

When recruiting for remote cyber security postings, employers have a relatively high degree of trust in the new hires. The issue is that your management may not get to see you on a daily basis and potentially may have never physically met you if you are a remote worker.

As Dan Spaulding, Chief “People” Officer of Zillow, put it:

Thus, when one is onsite, it becomes easier for an employer to trust you because you physically accessible. They can see you every day and check the improvement every day. The problem for an employer arises when a recruit hasn’t yet demonstrated their value; it becomes almost impossible for the employer to let the worker work remotely for a certain post.

One of the best ways to help dampen their apprehension is to produce clean sheaves of your prior working experiences. If that does not succeed, maybe negotiate for a trial period spending several months on the job, proving your commitment before making the request one more time.

If evaluating a cyber security job as being remote it is notable that an employer may consider an applicant with vast experience or is highly specialized.

In order to do that, employers can only hire from a narrow pool of candidates to find the proper qualifications. Also, if this job was posted for a long time it means that the employer is having a tough time filling this particular position. Attempt to discover how long that position has been open.

If that role has been vacant for too long, they may have assumed they let the vendor who they hired for recruiting talent take it up as a task. As you may well expect, cost in terms of time and money invested for using the services of another company in its recruitment process is a real drain on any business.

When you hear that, you go for the kill. You can negotiate more frequent use of your skills or focus and go to your employer with the demand for remote work. They probably do not wish to go through the same process with another candidate.. Therefore, you might get them to change if you can sell yourself in the interview successfully.

The reason is that if the position requires one to be more urgent or physically inclined, it is impossible to work remotely. This is normally relevant in case you are part of an incident response team.

Work from home cybersecurity opportunities are now common and present numerous advantages for the targeted personnel. Nevertheless, not all positions can be worked remotely as many positions still need the physical presence of their employees because of collaborative work, security, or concern, and nature of data. Through demonstrating the knowledge, establishing credibility, and addressing employee concern, one can secure a job that fits well into one’s remote work model and drive the cybersecurity drive.