Why should an intern have 5+ years of experience?

[JoeB_IG]

I am a member of the Army and preparing for retirement next summer.  A program called the Department of Defense (DoD) Skillbridge program exists to help mitigate the talent gaps which exist in a variety of technical and skilled industries.  The purpose of this 3-6 month program is to partner service members with a participating organization with the intent to help them develop a new, employable skill set.

There are a lot of great programs that teach welding, pipe-fitting, HVAC, and even some cyber security firms have started participating.  Companies don't pay a salary to the intern; they are still paid as if they were in the military at their current pay grade with benefits/entitlements.  So aside from maybe some on-boarding costs, the company is getting "free" labor.

Applying for the cybersecurity internship programs (usually SOC positions), I have been discouraged to find that most of the participating companies want someone who already has several years of advance cyber security experience before even considering them as as intern.  Seriously, I have seen internship job announcements asking for someone with 5+ years of coding, 5+ years using SIEM/SOAR products, and a CISSP/CISA/CISM/CRISC, etc..... this sounds more like a mid-career analyst.

If you are interested in some "free" labor, I would like to encourage you to apply to be a DoD Skillbridge partner.  But I would also ask that you not seek the allusive Unicorn, but just a Veteran with grit, tenacity, and great work ethic.

[Steve-Wilme]

That's just absurd, as someone with 5+ years SOC experience should be highly employable and should not need to do an internship.  Conversely, we have apprentices in our SOC, who start with relatively little IT experience, but are put through a two year program to get them up to speed.

[JKWiniger]

@JoeB_IG Honestly, I would really speak to the people at DoD Skillbridge and make them aware of what you have been seeing, It seems like it defeats their entire mission. I am sure the military has people who have been trained in Cyber Security, but these people would be employable on their own and would not need an internship. These would be the only people who could possible meet the experience requirement. Any place that is asking for 5+ years for an intern position is doing nothing but killing morale of the good people looking to better themselves. Any place that does this should be reviewed and possibly ban from being a partner.

This is just my opinion.

John-

[CraginS]

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@JoeB_IG wrote:

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Applying for the cybersecurity internship programs (usually SOC positions), I have been discouraged to find that most of the participating companies want someone who already has several years of advance cyber security experience before even considering them as as intern.  Seriously, I have seen internship job announcements asking for someone with 5+ years of coding, 5+ years using SIEM/SOAR products, and a CISSP/CISA/CISM/CRISC, etc..... this sounds more like a mid-career analyst.

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Those companies are playing the system for free labor. Given the specific purpose of the Skillbridge program, I would interpret their actions as falling under Fraud, Waste, and Abuse (FWA) guidelines. I've advised Joe directly to file a formal complaint with the Army Inspector General (IG) on this mess.

Craig