Request For Information on Cyber Workforce Development Submitted to the Office of National Cyber Director

The U.S. government needs to be coordinated, prioritized, and diversified in its approach to building the national cyber workforce. The congressionally mandated Cyberspace Solarium Commission published a white paper on the cyber workforce in September 2020, identifying systemic barriers stymieing existing workforce development efforts. Expanding on those ideas, the CSC 2.0 project published the Workforce Development Agenda for the National Cyber Director in June 2022. In this Request For Information, the CSC 2.0 project staff have highlighted key recommendations from the report as well as drawn on other research to address the challenges identified by the Office of the National Cyber Director.

These recommendations focus on solutions not only for the federal government but also for the federal and national cyber workforce and include actions that would enable cyber workforce development efforts within the private sector.

The RFI is organized into three major parts to provide the following recommendations:

Area: Cyber Workforce; Sub-Area: Recruitment and Hiring

• Challenge: Enhance opportunities for entry-level members of the cyber workforce, including new entrants and people pursuing reskilling or upskilling
• Recommendation 1: Create partnerships to ensure new graduates have the qualifications necessary to secure an entry-level job in cybersecurity
• Recommendation 2: Conduct both budgetary and policy reviews of cyber workforce programs to assess their holistic effectiveness 

Area: Cyber Workforce; Sub-Area: Career Development and Retention

• Challenge: Enable career progression within the cyber workforce, in both the public and private sectors
• Recommendation 3: Provide incentives to develop entry-level employees into mid-career talent
• Recommendation 4: Establish a Federal Cyber Workforce Development Institute for an early-career development program for the federal cyber workforce
• Recommendation 5: Leverage the new cadre of HR Specialists [DM1] for record-keeping and metrics analysis

Area: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA); Sub-Area: DEIA in the Cyber Workforce

• Challenge: Identify best practices and strategies that are uniquely applicable to DEIA and a diverse cyber workforce
• Recommendation 6: Leverage the new cadre of HR Specialists for outreach and engagement