Leidos pilots skills-based hiring to help close the national cyber skills gap

Leidos has publicly committed to piloting new hiring techniques for cybersecurity jobs that emphasize job seekers’ skills over qualifications to help fill crucial cybersecurity roles.

• Skills-based hiring includes streamlined job postings that connect listed job requirements to identified skill keywords along with degree equivalency criteria with the goal of widening the pool of qualified candidates.

Why it matters: With hundreds of thousands of open cyber jobs across the country, hiring skilled cybersecurity professionals is critical for national security and economic growth.

At a White House cyber workforce event held at the College of Southern Nevada Friday, National Cyber Director Harry Coker highlighted Leidos’ skills-based hiring.

• “The only way we can defend the digital systems that lay the foundation for our modern way of life is to be sure that every American and people from every community have a pathway into a cyber-based career,” Coker has said previously.
• Leidos’ pledge to help cultivate a new generation of cybersecurity professionals aligns with the Biden Administration’s National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy (NCWES).

Where it stands: Leidos developed and submitted a pledge to the White House to publicly commit to help address the cyber skills gap.

• “Our pledge addresses critical challenges in cybersecurity and will help us enhance security, promote innovation and future growth, and foster collaboration among private, public and educational organizations,” said Lynsey Caldwell, Leidos cybersecurity workforce program director.
• “Our focus on supporting skills-based along with veteran hiring initiatives will help strengthen our national security as well as recognize the invaluable skills veterans and their spouses bring to the workforce. This is how we can build a diverse and resilient cyber workforce,” Caldwell concluded.

The big picture: Caldwell noted that closing the cyber skills gap has myriad benefits. A robust, skilled and diverse workforce:

• Is better equipped to mitigate cyber threats effectively, both internally and externally.
• Can foster the development of cutting-edge solutions.
• Is vital for safeguarding national security interests, including defense, intelligence and critical infrastructure protection.

A long history: Leidos has in recent years supported initiatives related to hiring military veterans and spouses as well as cybersecurity education, training, upskilling, and reskilling. These include:

• Operation MVP, Leidos’ company-wide initiative to hire and support military veterans and spouses.
• Creating the Leidos Cybersecurity Infrastructure Lab at the University of West Florida’s Hal Marcus College of Science and Engineering.
• Sponsoring cybersecurity educational initiatives at the Georgia Cyber Training and Innovation Center, the Augusta Technical College STEM Manufacturing Camp, the Alamo AFCEA Education Foundation, Howard University, and the Alabama School of Cyber Technology and Engineering.
• A technical upskilling program that saw over 5,500 employees participate in 2023.

Go deeper:

• The 2024 SANS/GIAC Cyber Workforce Research Report, which was released in conjunction with a White House cyber workforce event earlier this year, includes a Leidos case study on hiring for cybersecurity roles.
• Leidos cyber workforce professionals contributed insights to the Cybersecurity Workforce Playbook, a free resource from Business Roundtable to help employers fill cyber roles.
• Leidos participated in a White House workshop on hiring veterans and military spouses in July.

Our pledge:

Leidos, a provider of IT and cyber services to the federal government, is dedicated to shaping a more inclusive, educated, and innovative cyber future through three key workforce pillars focused on skills-based hiring, diversity, and training future-ready talent.

To enable skills-based hiring, Leidos commits to developing a comprehensive skills strategy. This strategy will focus on matching talent to jobs based on skills, utilizing degree equivalency criteria, pay differentiation for specialized skills, and cyber career development aligned with the NIST NICE skill taxonomy.

Leidos also pledges to share best practice outcomes from the skills strategy across the industry and to hire 15,000 veterans and military spouses by 2030. Of these, 7,000 are projected to be technical hires, a rate that exceeds non-veteran hires, and 2,500 of the projected technical hires would not need to hold a college degree.

Certain statements in this announcement constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the rules and regulations of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). These statements are based on management’s current beliefs and expectations and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. These statements are not guarantees of future results or occurrences. A number of factors could cause our actual results, performance, achievements, or industry results to be different from the results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors include, but are not limited to, the “Risk Factors” set forth in Leidos’ Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 29, 2023, and other such filings that Leidos makes with the SEC from time to time.  Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Leidos does not undertake to update forward-looking statements to reflect the impact of circumstances or events that arise after the date the forward-looking statements were made.