The notion that IT security professionals are mercenaries when it comes to work and would most likely move if given an opportunity to earn more is, by a large margin, incorrect.
That’s basically what a new report by AlienVault says. The report, entitled Blood on HR's floor -- The Challenge of Retaining IT Security Skills, has a couple of interesting points.
The first one, and arguably the most important one, is that people IT security professionals change jobs when they’re looking for something more challenging and interesting. Of the 132 people surveyed, 33.9 percent confirmed that they would move to a more exciting assignment.
Money and flexible working hours were ranked second (23 percent) and third (17 percent).
A similar pattern can be noticed with IT security professionals who are staying at their current job -- 65 percent do so because they are happy and content, not because of how much money they’re earning. The report says that 19 percent stay because of convenience, and 13 percent because of money.
What was also interesting to notice is that IT security professionals don’t usually leave jobs -- they leave bosses.
"Being unhappy with the boss or company culture was an underlying theme across the survey", says Javvad Malik, security advocate at AlienVault. "Yet, several participants, particularly those in larger organizations, felt a distinction should be made between the company culture and team culture. Noting that one can be very satisfied with ones colleagues and boss but dissatisfied with the company culture".
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