Episode 53: Breaking the Trust Barrier: How 909Select is Revolutionizing Cybersecurity Freelancing

Narrator:

Welcome to 909Exec, your source for wit and wisdom in cybersecurity and beyond. Today's episode is sponsored by 909Select the number one US focused cybersecurity freelancers marketplace. So please join us for 909Exec special edition, episode number 53 with Den Jones and Launa Rich.

Den:

Hey everybody. Welcome to a special edition of 909Exec. I have got our cyber security recruiter extraordinaire, Launa Rich in the house. Hey Launa, thanks for hanging out for a little bit and I think you and I are just going to have a little chitchat about cybersecurity and the talent game. So because the expert, so why don't you introduce yourself. Give us a little bit of background, who you are and why should we listen to the stuff you got to say on this topic?

Launa:

Thanks so much, Den. I'm really excited to be here. I have almost 20 years of experience in staffing and about eight of those were specifically dedicated to cybersecurity. So I've seen it all. And one thing I know is it hasn't changed that much. Eight years of trying to solve cybersecurity hiring still looks the same. So that's why Den and I are really passionate about putting cybersecurity recruiters in a different universe. Something's got to give for these CISOs out there.

Den:

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean that's the thing, right? So I mean, as a practitioner, myself and our team of practitioners, we've experienced a challenge. And it's funny because sometimes people will say there's a shortfall, there's a talent gap. They describe the problem in so many ways. And actually we did do a post on this a while ago, a blog post I believe it was, and we were just talking about the whole industry. And then last year we launched nine to nine ic, which was our passion project to get students part-time work. And even then there's a struggle for employers to want to take a little dive in and even give a student a shot, right? So why don't you, I mean from your landscape, describe what you think the problem is and we're going to jump in and talk about 909Select and our little new baby that we've just brought to the world. But let's talk about the problems first. What are the big problems? And when you talk to CISOs or recruiters or candidates, what's your takeaway?

Launa:

I think that the real barrier to entry to the market is trust. So that's what the excuse has been. We don't know who these people are. We're giving them the keys to the castle, and there's been this inherent mistrust. And I don't know about you den. I've gotten almost every single job I've ever had since my first job. I knew someone I network to get that job. So that in lies inherent trust and it's how a lot of people get jobs except we've built this multi-trillion dollar empire off resumes and job descriptions. There's no trust behind it. People don't trust the words, they don't trust the experience. They don't trust that they're getting what they're signing up for. I think that is where a big part of the mismatch has come from.

Den:

And it's one thing in my research. So as a hiring manager over the years when you're hired in a full-time job, and I think there's a separation here, there's full-time jobs and then there's work or freelancers or contractors. So we'll call them full-time and we'll call them freelancers. So two buckets, hiring a full-time person. I started to watch a lot of struggles in that space because we are just saying we're not getting the right candidate. It's not good enough. But I do believe there's a mismatch with expectations from employers and people that exist. So let's talk about that. We spun up last year with your leadership, the whole hiring. We can do resourcing for full-time employees and long-term contractors or really any gun for hire. But why don't you talk about that side of the industry? What do you see there as being the biggest challenge?

Launa:

I see that we have created unicorn job descriptions, not out of pure menace, but out of a couple of different reasons. One is we had budget constraints. So even though we knew we needed someone who was going to do product security, build in shift, left mentality into the workflow early know how to code, but we also know that's not their full-time job. They're not doing that eight hours a day. So then we start adding all these other crazy requirements. Maybe they're helping us get compliant, that's crazy. Those people don't do that. Maybe they're helping us do something else. So really what it comes down to is if you would've hired a freelancer, a SME to do that work, then you would've just been able to hire to hire someone lower down, save your budget, instead of constantly hunting for this unicorn. I think that's the most powerful model out there is SME who are freelancers and appropriately houred, and then you have your soldiers doing the work for you.

Den:

Yeah, it feels to me, and then we've seen this a lot, right? Where they build a job description. I think a lot of people hiring managers, it's almost like when you're buying a house, you want everything. I want the big car garage, I want a swimming pool, I want a real fireplace, and I want this brilliant kitchen and I want a den and I want a space for whatever, whatever. And then you look at your budget and you're like, well, I get $12 and then all of a sudden, well, in California, that's not necessarily buying you much to begin with.

I think it's job searching is a bit like that, and the employers just their expectations are kind of crazy. Now, trust, you mentioned that word, if we had a word count, I think you've probably mentioned the word trust about a billion times already.

We're only six and a half minutes in, and I think this is what is one of the bigger observations is if I look at recruitment sites, and in some cases includes LinkedIn as well, where there are profiles that exist that either misrepresent the candidate or they're fake. We've got the whole North Korea laptop farm situation, and I've heard several employers that I know where they actually found out they'd hired somebody who was a laptop farmer basically, or proxy interviews where the person that takes the test on the interview is not the same person that shows up at the end. I heard that just a couple of weeks ago. So building trust, and this leads me into the whole why do we think we are about to do something magic? So I think building trust in the profiles is absolutely vital on this journey so that an employer has confidence that the person they're talking to is really a human. It's zero trust as applied to resourcing now, which is you don't start with trust, you have to build an area, some trust in the journey. Correct?

Yes. So as you think of that concept, what do you think that that will mean for employers if they can engage on a platform where they feel and they know and they have confidence in the people who are there?

Launa:

Yeah, I mean, I am sure. Well, let's just state facts. AI is just going to make this problem worse. So you have to kind of put your foot down and stop it before it runs away completely. I think that the issue is people don't trust a piece of paper, and I don't trust job descriptions when I read them, not in the least. And almost after taking thousands of job descriptions from hiring managers, I can confidently tell you, not once has a piece of paper matched up to what they set out of their mouth so that there's a huge problem in the market and candidates have survived by mimicking that, by inflating their own skillsets, and it's just a survival technique. So we have to eliminate all of that. And I do think a big piece of the burden is on the candidate because of the bad actors out there who are doing deep fakes, who are proxying interviews differently.

So starting with trust through the candidate is going to alleviate a lot from the employer side and then maybe just we can get them to stop hunting for unicorns and just put on a piece of paper what they really need. I understand this concept of shooting for the stars, wanting the billion dollar house, but I really wish people would just get down to business operations. What do we really need? We don't need to compete with Apple, we just need to make sure our code is secure and focus more on that. So yeah, so I think if we can get trust in the candidates trust from the employers trust in the process, then that's just going to go a long way.

Den:

And that's a huge thing is employers come up with crazy job specs and then candidates, they'll use AI to rewrite their resume to match the job. So I think it's just a whole cyclic pile of nonsense really. So let's talk about 9 0 9 select. So we started off with 9 0 9 ic, which was a platform connecting students for part-time work with employers. And as I noodled on, so probably some alcohol was involved, I was probably drinking some wine one night thinking about this dilemma with 9 0 9 ic. And the dilemma really was there's great students on the platform looking for part-time work and we're not seeing the uptake the way we were hoping. And there's many things we could have done, marketing and blah, blah, blah, blah. But I thought this one was, I think with ai, there's going to be more people needing work. So I think that's going to happen. So there's more people out of work because of ai, so you're going to get more people looking for work. I think because of COVID, you get a lot of people realizing they don't want to do the Monday, Friday night till five, Or

They don't want to work in the office who want to be more gig economy type workers. Then you've got full-time workers that need to supplement their income with gig work. So I really thought, let's evolve 9 0 9 IC and build a marketplace to combat the problem. So first of all, we're focusing in on the USA first, and then we're focused in on cybersecurity and the disciplines around that. And then from there, we want to dig into the whole how do we build trust with the freelancers? So that's where as we were huddling, it's like, okay, so let's do identity proofing at the start. Let's enable background checks. Let's do the interview with our trusted recruiter, that's me. And then interview with CISOs and our team. And then along the journey, we've not implemented this yet, but we're partnering with a company called Interview Safe. So the interview conversations they have either with our team or with the employer, It'll

All be held in this platform so that we're guaranteeing there's no proxy interviews and things of that nature. So at the end, we're building trust, and if that wasn't enough, then we do a rating so that you can rate Uber style rating, right? The freelancer, an employer. I'm kind of excited because I think that absolutely, I'm not going to ever use the word eliminate the risk of fake profiles, but I certainly think it goes a long way, which, I mean, you're in the thick of this. What's your take on what we're bringing to bear? Why do you think we've got a chance to convince people we're different and worthy of using?

Launa:

Yeah, I mean, first I just love what you've built. I love what John has built with Interview Safe. I think it is pointing a light on something that people have struggled with for decades. I mean, I know in the early two thousands when you'd interview one person and then another person showed up, I heard those horror stories over and over again. So I love that we're really tackling this problem. I think that if after all that you have trust and you have the ability to hire them on an hourly basis and test them yourself without fully committing to them, without getting HR involved and it being this whole thing, it's that ease. And maybe even especially with the students, you hire a pod, you hire six of them for two months, and then you keep the ones that work really well. It just allows you to build that trust gradually.

And what it feels like getting a full-time job is getting married. I've been surprised by some of the jobs I've taken. I'm like, wow, that's what we do here. And so I get why the trust has become this barrier, but I do think that you're really easing them through the process. You're validating so much, and the skills can be validated with a low investment, right? Yeah. You are validating their skills on some level, but your opinion's different. Hire a pod, figure out which ones are the best for your need and then you can move forward.

Den:

And the one thing, I mean, we're trying to make it risk, not risk free, but certainly reduced risk. So it's like how do we make it safer for the employer to bring somebody in on a freelance basis? And the big thing, I mean a couple of things for us. One is our platform. We're not charging monthly fees. We do charge a platform fee for the employer. When they hire someone, they'll pay a 15% platform fee. Although we did announce for the very first job that an employer posts, we give a 33% discount. So instead of it being 15%, it'll be a 10% platform fee. So that's good. But then when the job is agreed, then the employer pays a fund into a holding account, and then when the freelancer completes the work, then the funds are released to the freelancer. So I think we've made it safe, safer for the employer and the freelancer to basically feel comfortable with the transaction. I mean, I think the most important thing for us, and you've mentioned this word a lot, is trust. We got to bring trust to this game and

Launa:

Use, I mean, that's the one thing that I'm on Upwork every day. It is savage out. There are every cybersecurity job I keep an eye on, they get 70 responses and they ping none of them. It's overwhelming. There's people from all over the world sending you spammy stuff, not trusted nothing. And it's a headache. So I know the need is out there. I see it on Upwork, it's just being handled appallingly. So I'm really grateful for you for solving this problem. I have a lot of faith

Den:

And and that's the one thing I think for us, there are platforms like Upwork and Fiverr and all of those. They're great for what they are. I think the one thing that we recognize is we want to be known as the cybersecurity platform, the one where you go, because A, we are security professionals. So when we built the platform, we built it with security in mind. So that goes down to the trust. That comes down to even silly things like the freelancer details are not revealed to all the employers. We reveal just what we need to reveal In Order for an employer to know that you might be worthy to connect with and then you agree as a freelancer if you want to connect with the employer and then they can see your details. So just something simple like that, because if you're the, I'm doing some gig work on the side kind of person, you don't want people to necessarily see your details. So that needs to be obfuscated.

Launa:

I would still like to get rid of that premise too. And this economy, people need gig work, so It worries.

Den:

Yeah, I mean that's one of the big things, right, is ideally we don't all need to do 15 jobs to make, to have an easy life, but hey, that's how the world's working. So as we launch and we build the platform, I think there's some differentiation. What I look for is how do we get in the future more and more people realizing that this is cyber professionals and practitioners building a platform that we wished always existed because we struggled. And I think the one thing is as well is we've not enabled this for recruiters yet. I think there's still discussion that you and I are going to have in the coming weeks on the validity of doing that. We've also not enabled this for consulting firms, although I've had that question already, which is, Hey, I got a consultancy. Can all of my team be in the platform? It's like, well, we got to figure something out there that might work. So I think the cool thing is our friends and family pre-launch that we'd done this week, we've been getting some great feedback and some things to tighten messaging up, but then also other ideas for things that we could do. Sweet. Yes, I'm pretty excited. Lana, as we wrap up this little ramble, what's one, what's that one thing that you tell people about 909Select that is the reason they should check it out? Why should they care?

Launa:

It's not supposed to be this hard. It's not supposed to be this hard. I think that's what we've lost sight of. We are a community, we are a powerful community. We don't need to compete with the other voices in the room. Let's just as a community solve this together. If I see one more cybersecurity professional who's been out of work for six months, who's a total batty, I'm lose my mind. So it's not supposed to be this hard. It can be simple, it can be reliable, trustworthy, and that's what we're going to be doing.

Den:

Beautiful, beautiful. Hey Lana, thanks for the chitchat. We'll probably do some of these more in the future. I think there's a bigger message to continue to push out there that this, like you say, it doesn't have to be this hard. And ideally people realize our platform is one that you can trust and jump on and get some success with. So

Launa:

Big

Den:

Up big to 909Select. I guess

Launa:

We're making it happen.

Den:

Thanks, Launa. Take it easy.

Launa:

Bye.

Narrator:

Thanks for listening to 909Exec. Don't miss an episode of your source for wit and Wisdom in cybersecurity and beyond.

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