Gaming bridges the generational divide in IT, writes By Graham Hunter, VP Skills Certifications, EMEA at CompTIA, the US-based Information Technology (IT) trade association.
Hacks and data breaches are increasingly high-profile, with companies like British Airways and Marriott facing unprecedented financial consequences for the exposure of loyal customers’ highly sensitive data. In the political space, hacking has become an egregious threat to the democratic process and has called into question the legitimacy of certain elections and leaders. Speaking to the widespread nature of the digital threat, Hilary Clinton warned US presidential hopefuls last week “If you have not had your personal and campaign emails hacked, they will be. So will the emails of people working for you. Your information will be stolen and then weaponised against you in the most pernicious ways.” She then went on to call for stronger national cybersecurity as campaign managers struggle to keep up with security protocol.
This dire, worldwide digital reality is compounded by a stark IT skills gap that is increasingly noticeable here in the UK. Three in five business leaders, according to the Open University Business Barometer, say the skills gap has actually worsened in the last year alone, yet two-thirds of businesses have no plan in place for addressing it. Many are looking to the future and seeing cybersecurity as a long-game requiring a deep investment in the skills and career readiness of our youth.
“Game” may just be the key word. Nintendo, for example, recently partnered with the Digital Schoolhouse initiative to help transfer the existing gaming skills many children have into a lucrative IT skillset. Transferable skills from gaming are, as it happens, extremely useful for a career in IT. Experimentation, fast reaction time, perseverance, and a problem-solving mindset all are highly prized attributes in any IT worker. And, thinking bigger, recent experiments have shown great promise in taking game logic and applying it to non-gaming scenarios to solve some of the world’s most intractable problems like climate change, let alone to improve a company’s cybersecurity defences. But perhaps most importantly, when we meet young people where they already are, we make IT a more attractive field for a more diverse pool of applicants. That young gamers may already intuitively understand systems architecture and networking is a huge bonus and enables hiring managers to tap into a strong IT foundation without starting from scratch.
There is no longer an ideal IT job candidate in terms of specific technology experience or mastery. Mindset is everything now, and managers would do well to recognise that first and foremost, they should be hiring for personality and a willingness to learn. Someone who readily adjusts course to protect against a new or emerging threat to a company’s digital presence without being told what to do, for example, is far more valuable than someone who has decades of IT experience but isn’t open to learning or trying new things. The new “ideal” person may just have deep, untapped gaming experience.
The rate of change and growth in IT is as alarming as it is exciting. Our data projects that the IT workforce in the UK will grow by some 14,000 workers this year alone to 1.3 million. Emerging technology is creating uncertainty around what it means to be employed, what employers will expect of workers, and how companies will deliver the products and services that make up the backbone of our economy. With such little certainty and in the face of increasing cybersecurity threats, the one future-proof decision an employer can and should make is in the constant training and upskilling of their IT workers.
It’s often asserted by business leaders that there is some fundamental flaw with the work ethic of younger generations. I think this is a dangerous and wrong way of thinking. Business leaders must make an investment in the career path of young people, but doing that means being open to what they might learn from them in turn. Through tapping into game culture and its many avid members as Nintendo has done, established IT professionals and leaders can gain a new perspective on cybersecurity while helping to close the IT skills gap.
