Workforce development
Find cyber potential beyond the usual talent pool
CyberGEN.IQ helps workforce-development programs identify cognitive aptitude for different areas of cyber work, including in participants without traditional cybersecurity credentials or experience
Workforce and community partners
Organizations using CyberGEN.IQ to open cyber pathways to more people
The workforce challenge
Traditional signals can hide high-potential talent
Credentials and work history tell a program a great deal, and they still describe only part of the talent picture
Career changers often do not yet know where their strengths align, and training capacity is finite
What a program can read on day one
- Resume and work history
- Credentials and completed coursework
- Education history
- Current technical knowledge
These signals matter and they are worth weighing, and they also record which opportunities a person has already had access to
What aptitude adds to the same picture
- Cognitive aptitude for cyber work
- Problem-solving patterns
- Which dimensions are strongest and weakest relative to each other
- Potential alignment with different areas of cyber work
Different areas of cyber work draw on these patterns in different combinations, so there is no single strong profile
Prior experience and cognitive aptitude are two different maps
Switch the lens on the same representative intake group
The participants a program can most easily see are not the same participants aptitude points to
How CyberGEN.IQ supports workforce programs
Four ways aptitude insight earns its place in a program
Relevant aptitude shows up in participants from any background
Because the assessment requires no prior cybersecurity knowledge, it reads the same for a career changer as for a participant arriving with two certifications
Add aptitude insight before limited resources are committed
Seats, instructor hours and lab time are finite, and a profile gives program leaders one more source of evidence when deciding where that investment is likely to go furthest
Give coaches and participants shared language
A multidimensional profile helps a participant and a career coach explore which areas of cyber work may suit their strongest dimensions, and the direction stays the participant's to choose
See cognitive patterns across a participant population
Group and compare profiles to read the shape of an intake group, which is useful for cohort composition, instructor planning and partner conversations
Where CyberGEN.IQ fits
Useful throughout the workforce pathway
Select a point in the pathway to see how the same assessment reads there
From individual insight to cohort intelligence
See the person and the pipeline
One participant, five cognitive dimensions read together
- Which dimensions are strongest and weakest relative to each other
- High-level alignment with different areas of cyber work
- Language to support a career and development conversation
Every profile contributes to the view of the group
More than one pathway into cyber
Cyber work calls for different kinds of cognitive strength
A complete profile is read against four broad areas of cyber work, so a participant with one pattern and a participant with another may both have somewhere to go
Offensive Operations
Probing a system the way an adversary would, looking for the undocumented way in while the opportunity is open
Defensive Operations
Watching activity that runs all shift, catching the one thing that does not belong, and acting on it
Design and Development
Building systems and tooling that hold up against attacks nobody has tried yet
Analysis and Forensics
Reconstructing what happened from evidence that is partial, scattered or deliberately obscured
Veterans and military transition
Service experience is not always a cyber resume
Many service members and veterans bring strong problem-solving patterns, situational awareness and ways of thinking that matter in cyber work
Aptitude reads the same whatever the specialty
- The assessment needs no prior cybersecurity knowledge, so it reads the same for a logistics specialist as for someone who served in a cyber role
Somewhere concrete to start the transition conversation
- A profile helps a transitioning service member and a career coach see which areas of cyber work may suit their strongest dimensions
Exploration and training decisions stay with people
- Results inform exploration, training and advising conversations, and they do not guarantee employment, placement or program outcomes
Workforce strategy session
Make more cyber potential visible
Speak with Haystack Solutions about using cognitive aptitude insights to support talent discovery, cohort understanding and cyber workforce development