Challenging Barriers to Entry and Rejection - Aarti Gadhia

and greetings to everyone oh my phone is ringing i'm so excited i've been waiting for this call i think i've nailed the interview and this is the call hello this is already speaking hi arty this is your recruiter how are you i'm doing well i'm just calling to let you know already that we interviewed several candidates and we decided to move forward with another candidate i'd like to thank you for your interest in our organization and we we would like to wish you all the best in your job hunt rejection rejection rejection it is frustrating right thank you for joining me today at the virtual b-sides vancouver conference as i cover the topic challenging barriers

to entry and rejection in terms of agenda for the next 25 minutes i will cover some of the common barriers followed by a few tips and tricks on how you can overcome these barriers so a little bit about me my name is artie gadia and my purpose is to drive change and make an impact i've dedicated my entire career to breaking down barriers and boundaries to achieve equality for underrepresented groups in stem and in leadership and i've done this through starting up two organizations stand out to lead and she sharing her empowerment i also received the award last year as the top 20 women in cyber security in canada and i'm one of the authors of the book the rise of

cyber women volume 2. i currently work for bug crowd and recently was appointed as the board member for observe id i volunteer my time on cyber security boards such as isaka she leads tech vancouver os vancouver board and i'm the board advisor for weisses western canada affiliate outside of work i enjoy cooking video editing and as you can see from this picture i enjoy riding my motorcycle it has been a little over a year gone by since the world went into shutdown from personal experience i can tell you that this has been a bumpy ride i've seen many individuals lose their jobs and at the same time i've seen new opportunities created as organizations are finding new ways to

conduct their business and i hope that flexible work hours and work from anywhere will become the new norm as you heard on the phone call earlier i'm sure each and every one of us have faced this rejection during our career i'd now like to hear from you all and in the chat box please share the barriers you may have experienced when applying for jobs in the cyber security industry is it a you do not have technical skills b you do not have relevant experience see we found someone with more experience d your location is a barrier or e other if you choose other please share the barriers you may have faced i know in my situation

i couldn't get into leadership positions because i was based in vancouver and we've all seen today through the pandemic the world has changed and the way we do business has changed so let's understand what the problem is so there's an article from infosec magazine that shared the cybersecurity skills shortage for the first time fell last year from 4.1 million to 3.2 million 56 percent of the respondents said that their organizations are at risk due to cybersecurity staff shortages so how are we going to find more how are we going to find that 3.2 million gap is the problem that there is a shortage in cyber security professionals or is the challenge we can't find the

right talent another interesting stat according to pew research in 2019 in the workforce there were 29.5 million women with a bachelor's degree versus 29.3 million men with such a large pool of talent why is it so difficult to find through 3.2 million in simple math there are 7.8 billion in the world people in the world 60 million in the workforce that have a degree and all we need is 3.2 million to fill the gap well the solution to solve the 3.2 million shortage in cyber skills the challenge isn't that we don't have enough cyber security professionals the challenge is that we're limiting ourselves and we need to look beyond the traditional way of hiring and i'm

here to tell you increasing diversity and breaking down these barriers will solve the problem last year i ran a fireside chat with three women from twitch hp and norton lifelock and all of all four of us fell into cyber security by accident we had project management engineering accounting and economics and we're all here in cyber security and secondly some of you earlier mentioned one of your barriers you faced is lack of technical skills if the adversary does not have a barrier why are we creating barriers why do we limit applicants only if they have a certain degree unfortunately i have seen some hiring managers shortlist candidates based on technical requirements and this is one of the reasons why there

is a cyber security shortage we have a local example here where an individual moved from hr to join a technical role on the secops team as she was great at problem solving and understanding human behavior and she applied that into this role most hiring managers probably would have not even considered that resume and that would have been rejected or not even interviewed the solution is to rethink your recruitment strategy on candidates based on their soft skills red hat blue hat green hat or whether you've studied hr or cyber security or whether you wanted to be a stock broker or an engineer each and every one of us can join the hunt and solve this problem

so now let's take a look at the solution how can you prepare yourself to land an interview i'll share five tips the first one is referral first and foremost reach out to your network linkedin is a great way to see who's connected to who if you see a position for example see who you're connected with at that organization either someone your network works there or one of your connections will know the hiring manager if you know who the hiring manager is make the ask to your connection if they can refer you an interesting tip on the referral program the private sector has an internal referral program so for example here at bug crowd if i

refer you i get paid a referral fee there's some positions i can earn a referral fee of up to 6 000 us dollars so there is an incentive for your connection to refer you if they have that internally within the organization you cannot apply first and then reach out to me and ask me for a referral and of course we need to know each other before i can refer you a great question to ask your connection is if they have a referral program and if they would be willing to refer you like i mentioned earlier make sure your connection you know your connection and ask them for details about who will interview you what the process is the personality of

the interviewer and something that nobody else would know so you can prepare yourself for the interview i'll i'll cover more details on how to connect in my last tip but in most cases a referral guarantees you at least a first stage interview if you don't get that first stage interview ask your referral for feedback as that will help you second is build your brand when you think of brands you'll typically think about products retail businesses celebrities or athletes but did you know that with every interaction you have with your network whether this is through a conversation or through social media or through your project work you're building your personal brand have you ever wondered what impact

you can have when you build your personal brand what opportunities you can bring a great quote from jeff bezos your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room a strong brand is important as you build your professional career in today's world it can be daunting to build your personal brand as people are quick to form an impression of you it is human nature to form an opinion and according to research it takes seven seconds to make first impression and as you build your brand you will notice that opportunities will arise use your brand to land job roles speaker slots and industry recognition let me give you an example in 2019 i started submitting talks on the

topic there is no cyber security skills shortage and they were rejected and i know people knew me but not as a speaker i didn't give up and i submitted to besides calgary and through that talk people started seeing me as a speaker and my talks are starting to get accepted because of the brand that i'm building your brand will create opportunities for you whether it is in the form of job roles speaking slots or whatever it is that you're looking to achieve some of you mentioned technical skills as a barrier and i will share another example as someone i mentored studied media she became interested in cyber security and started a youtube videos explaining how to find bugs and how she

started her bug bounty journey the videos helped her build her brand and she now has 30 000 followers and while she does not have a technical degree she landed an interview at a job offer as an application security engineer because the hiring manager saw her brand and her brand removed the barrier of a lack of a technical degree i have a talk coming up that you'll see on linkedin building your personal brand and i'll share more details on how you can build your personal brand but over to this third tip which is network and network through volunteering opportunities get involved at local security groups such as b-sides weeses western canada affiliate aisaka os and many more audience question for you

all please feel free to share any other volunteering opportunities in the chat window share this with everybody if you enjoy speaking or submitting cfps or if you enjoy writing or you can help with content by submitting blogs or help the organization or organizers with video editing or even workshops volunteer i hear i heard during last week's conference with vip's conference one of the women on the panel mentioned that through volunteering on aisaka it helped her with many opportunities volunteer and network at these conferences you never know you could meet someone today at b-sides conference who has an opening on their team and you now have a connection who can refer you without having to apply

formally tip number four take the time to find a mentor and a sponsor many security chapters locally offer a mention mentoring program i ask so many individuals do you have a mentor and they say no in fact i conducted a survey to find out why and 25 of the respondents say they do not have enough time in the day and the other 25 said they weren't sure how to approach someone take the time to invest in yourself all you need is one hour once a month find the right mentor don't find a mentor because you want a promotion or a job in the in their company the investment in a mentor is to see what you don't see in yourself

their guidance will help you land an interview i would also suggest that you find a sponsor within the organization as they will help promote your brand the sponsor will help you without you making the ask in my case i started submitting cfps to larger conferences where i am competing against hundreds of submissions i started seeking out for a mentor one of the conferences offered the mentorship program i met with two mentors in the last month the sessions have been so valuable i learned so much about writing and abstract i don't know if in future my talks will get accepted but there's so much i learned that i didn't know a mentor won't tell you what to do but

they will help guide and help you see things differently tip number five is connect with the interviewer think of the end in mind therefore during the interview process make it a conversation and try to connect with the interviewer take the time to read through their linkedin profile a friend of mine was getting interviews she had recently moved and she she was getting interviews but she just wasn't getting that offer job and i was working with her to try and help her as i mentioned she'd moved from africa to canada and either was being told we found someone else with more experience or sometimes as an immigrant you may hear you don't have canadian experience as a new immigrant sometimes it takes

time to connect and build your network i know i faced that because i moved from kenya here in 2004. as that individual was preparing for into for an interview i asked her a little question tell me a little bit about who is going to interview you and she focused on their experience the role that they took and i paused and suggested let's look at their linkedin profile and we saw this individual was originally from south africa who had moved to canada in 2001. my advice was connect through that experience as he would also have gone through that experience of struggling to get a job and get settled and it worked she started that way she connected with

the interviewer and her interview went smooth they were able to go back to the early days of when you first moved into this country and what they faced and how they landed a job and they were able to connect on so many different things and my advice is when you prepare for an interview for an interview find something you have in common with that individual it could be a hobby or sometimes you could see that on linkedin you could see some of their posts that they are submitting for example my post everyone knows i'm passionate about diversity and you'll see that in my posts when someone reaches out to me about diversity i'm all ears i'm

all excited i want to hear more i want to talk and i'd like to share some sample closing questions when you're going through an interview in sales we use this term abc always be closing so when you blended your interview how do you close and how do you end your interview during the interview validate the criteria what are the top five things you're looking for in a successful candidate when they ask you a question be clear and concise and validate that you have addressed your question at the end of the interview ask these few simple questions do you have any red flags or any areas of concerns that i can address if they say yes gather feedback and

address each one of those concerns for example i was once told you don't have relevant experience for selling into commercial accounts and my experience was working with the public sector i addressed that question right away with examples and then took the interviewer to understand how i go about closing deals because i'm in sales and i pulled up a reference quote from one of my customers very well known and i showed it to the interviewer ask them another question who else are they interviewing how do you compare against them get to know your competition if you have connected with the interviewer well they will share details trust me i've had individuals say well this is what it

is i've got four other candidates and you ask them how do you rank against them third one is if they say they don't have any concerns or red flags that's your time to close ask them what the next stage is in the interview and then ask them will you support me in the next stage of the interview this is where you're gaining commitment from them gaining their support if they say yes and you're meeting someone else ask them for advice or a little background about the next interviewer this will help you know if they are your champion ask them when you will hear back for a meeting for that next interview with the next individual

if they don't know set up a schedule in in a week's time and say if i don't hear back from you are you okay if i schedule 15 minutes in a week's time to get a status update you will see many people will sit will say sure they're not going to say no especially if you've connected well they like you they've supported they've agreed that they're supporting you in the next stage never leave an interview without a next step and lastly don't forget to take down take down their email address and phone number and send them an email thanking them in your email take the time to highlight what you enjoyed about the conversation remind them of something unique about

that chat that they liked something that you liked about their style and then end the email with your agreed next steps including don't forget including thanking them that they are supporting you in the next stage because they agreed these are some of the questions that can help you stand out from all the other candidates and help you close so that you can get that offer letter now i hope that during your closing questions it will give you an indication on whether you will go to the next stage or not and reality is that you may not get every job offer in most cases your gut will tell you if the interview went well or not

and when you do get that rejection email or call like you heard earlier on ask them for a debrief we're all here to learn listen to their feedback and in some cases if there is an unconscious bias that is when you may want to educate the interviewer for example a few years ago in an interview during the closing questions the red flag in my interview with somebody else the red flag that the individual who was interviewing me for a position i was informed that my location was a barrier based in vancouver and they wanted someone based out of toronto and the role was traveling all over canada to meet clients and that individual wouldn't accept that

i was based in vancouver and the only way i would get the offer job was if i moved to toronto i didn't want to move i challenged the interviewer and asked them if location was more important than the skill set or the right culture fit their answer was that they would that they have always hired based on location so then i asked them hey i'm curious how would a local rep in toronto manage accounts in montreal or canada or calgary and they mentioned that they would fly or do a remote zoom call and that's when i question well why wouldn't you hire a rep in vancouver who could do the same thing and fly to toronto or cover over a zoom

i educated the interviewer and shared something that somebody had said to me when they hired me and didn't care where i was based and from and that individual shared with me and said that that manager shared with me for me what is important in a candidate is not their location but it is who will take us to the finish line and i shared that with the interviewer in the end the interviewer could not accept this and for me that shows the culture of the company it shows me more about the individual this is not the right company for me in the end we both agree this is not the right fit for either one of us

and that's how we ended the conversation so sometimes you may have to self reject the opportunity you may get the barrier of technical skills and we're starting to see an increase in awareness of the importance of soft skills in the workplace in our industry if a red flag is technical skills share some examples of the soft skills you can bring that will overcome this barrier share your interest in taking some courses show your willingness that you will you're interested in learning more and as i bring it back to the top to the topic which is challenging bears to entry and rejection i'd like to conclude that there is no cyber security skill shortage we can solve the 3.2 million shortage

and the way to solve this is to break down the barriers to entry if the adversary does not have any barriers why should we secondly i highlighted five tips to help you land an interview apply those tips and let me know your feedback i'm curious i'm interested to see your feedback and lastly remember that an interview is both ways while you're being interviewed you're also interviewing the organization you will know whether the organization is a right fit or not trust your gut and educate if you see there's an unconscious bias we need to challenge the status quo but challenge it in a way that matters if you are reviewing candidates as a hiring manager i ask you to broaden your criteria

hire based on potential and see what skills the candidate is going to bring to your team diversity is important and my hope is to inspire everyone that no matter what you're faced with stay authentic speak up and don't be afraid of the outcome look rome wasn't built in a day i know we cannot close the gap overnight but with every one of us speaking up and doing our part it will happen over time but it will take each and every one of us or it won't happen at all to conclude as i bring this back to my purpose which is to be a change agent to close the gap for underrepresented groups in stem and

in leadership i'd like to share a quote my quote gender diversity should not be a woman's problem to solve or an hr issue to handle nor our legislation to be implemented we shouldn't wait for a movement to occur it should be everybody's problem to solve i'd now like to open this up to questions and if you'd like to connect with me directly on linkedin to end shukria

and thank you