Neurodiversity and cybersecurity leadership positions
Today's guest is Anthony Pacilio, VP Neurodiverse Solutions at CAI. I met Pacilio at this year’s ISACA Digital Trust World event in Boston, and I was immediately fascinated with his insights on hiring and attracting neurodiverse professionals in security, IT, engineering and related industries, all of which suffer a skills gap and all of which are in need of new insights and working methods. Pacilio and I have a substantive conversation about changing the structure of the “6-hour marathon” interview process, the difference between an employee who stays in one job role vs. an employee who stays in but re-imagines that one job role, and why this new way of hiring and recruitment can lead to nothing less than an entire transformation of a company’s work culture.
0:00 - Neurodiversity and cybersecurity leadership
4:18 - Pacilio's early years with tech
7:40 - Shifting roles in cybersecurity
12:55 - VP of neurodiverse solutions
16:10 - CAI's dedication to neurodiversity
19:27 - Neurodiverse solutions in cybersecurity and IT
23:50 - Rethinking the cybersecurity role interview
26:32 - Adopting new interview strategies
33:03 - Examples and success stories
35:30 - Where neurodiverse workers succeed in cybersecurity
42:04 - Tips for neurodiverse learners in cybersecurity
45:58 - Advice for new cybersecurity professionals
52:30 - Learn more about CAI
53:05 - Outro
– Get your FREE cybersecurity training resources: https://www.infosecinstitute.com/free
– View Cyber Work Podcast transcripts and additional episodes: https://www.infosecinstitute.com/podcast
Transcript
Chris SienkoHost00:00
Today on CyberWork, my guest is Anthony Picilio, vp NeuroDiverse Solutions at CAI. I met Anthony at this year's Isaka Digital Trust World event in Boston and I was immediately fascinated with his insights on hiring and attracting neurodiverse professionals in IT security, engineering and related industries, all of which are, as you know, suffering a skills gap and all of which are in need of new insights and working methods. Anthony and I have a substantive conversation about changing the structure of the six hour marathon interview process, the difference between an employee who stays in one job role versus an employee who stays in but reimagines that one job role, and why this new way of hiring and recruitment can lead to nothing less than an entire transformation of a company's work culture. Any ideas to take you into the new year? That's all today on CyberWork.
00:53
Welcome to this week's episode of the CyberWork with InfoSec podcast. Each week, we talk with a different industry thought leader about cybersecurity trends, the way those trends affect the work of InfoSec professionals, while offering tips for breaking in or moving up the ladder in the cybersecurity industry. Anthony Picilio is recognized domestically and internationally as an expert in neurodiverse employment and currently serves as Vice President of CAI NeuroDiverse Solutions. Picilio specializes in advancing neurodiversity programs and leads the global expansion efforts of neurodiverse solutions at CAI. Anthony is someone that I met at this year's ISACA conference in Boston. We immediately hit it off after his presentation and I wanted to have him on the show talk about the work he does and how it intersects with cybersecurity positions, cybersecurity jobs, cybersecurity leadership and the role that neurodiverse people can play in that. Anthony, thank you so much for joining me today and welcome to CyberWork.
Anthony PicilioGuest01:51
Yeah, thank you, chris. I appreciate it. It was a good time at ISACA, way back when we did indeed hit it off there. I'm glad it's. All the things that we talked about came to fruition.
Chris SienkoHost02:03
It's all coming together here Even at the end of the year. We got it to work. To help our listeners get to know you, I want to get a sense of your career journey. Before working with CAI, you spent years working in product management, software engineering and mortgage banking QA. Your career is now strongly intersects with tech and cybersecurity, but I wanted to ask about your relationship to tech growing up and in your educational year. So was software engineering a role that you sought out or did the opportunity reveal itself at the right time? Were you moving towards tech at that point or did that just opportunity open?
Anthony PicilioGuest02:39
Yeah, I think my quick answer is I didn't seek it out, it sought me out. But I can give you a sense of the love of technology from when I was a young kid. My dad used to bring home these crazy things like a disc player way back in the day. Then we were the first ones on the block to have the Commodore 64 with the Dot Matrix printer and the Floppy drive. That's awesome. So we had a lot of. I was the remote control as a kid and then remote controls, so I've always loved how it intersects with what people are doing in the world and how it actually connects everybody in the world. That pretty much led me into. Throughout elementary school and in high school I was in love with radio intelligence and it just blossomed from there. I went to college and I have my radio intelligence degree, my mass media degree, so I was behind the camera, in front of the camera, using all of the technology way back in the early 1990s when we were one of the first colleges that had a remote truck.
04:05
So if you see TV, program today they have these big trucks and they can do all the cuts from the cameras and the sound. But way back when in 1991, it was unheard of that, a community college, no less, had its own truck, so that got the juices flowing and did a good stint in that. Then I thought I was going to be on ESPN. So I graduated, went to Florida and that obviously didn't work out. And then I came into banking and so my very first job was collecting, but over the years it kind of morphed. And then, jeez 2008 probably I left one financial institution, went to a healthcare institution and that's where the whole kind of QA and UAD and all that stuff started to come together, fast forward a little bit more and then I became the administrator of AOLM Quality Center for Passfail all that good stuff, defects, and then it just came into mortgage banking. So it honestly it really did come at the right time for me and I didn't go look for it. It just kind of that's how the evolution came from.
Chris SienkoHost05:33
That's awesome. Thank you, that's a great answer. So the biggest shift in your career track, anthony, appears to be in 2017, at least in terms of our story here. When you were employed with JPMorgan Chase and Co, your job role transitioned from vice president mortgage banking quality assurance, which you just told us about, to vice president autism at work, so that's obviously a very formative year for you. So can I ask you more about this shift in role within the company? Was this something that you created for yourself? Was this an opportunity that again made itself known and came to you and you were raised your right hand to grab it? And what were the aspects of your work life to that point that made this switch feel like aha? Now this feels right.
Anthony PicilioGuest06:15
Yeah, well, the opportunity arose when I was in the QA area because we needed more talent, right, and we couldn't get QA analysts to come in to do that manual testing, and so we had to find an alternative pipeline. So we looked outside of the quote, unquote, normal or traditional ways of finding talent to find that particular pipeline. And the governor of Delaware at the time and JPMorgan Chase were on the same path. Folks who are on the spectrum autism. They wanted to see if we could pilot something that would work in JPMorgan Chase. So we started developing the program and my boss at the time was leading that effort. I was his chief of staff.
07:09
It really again hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew we developed that program. I did raise my hand and said, hey, listen, I need to be involved with this, chris. And what we haven't talked about is that neurodiversity, like that term. Neurodiversity, it's a different way of thinking. The brain processes things different and includes autism, adhd, dyslexia, dyspraxia, anxiety, depression, ptsd, all of those things. I always knew, chris, it was a little quirky, a little different until my diagnosis a lot of years later. But I felt at home when that program started. It obviously blossomed to where it is today. I've left. A couple of years ago as the global head. There, we had 300 people in 10 different countries doing 40 different job roles. People are always thinking that folks who are on the spectrum they can only do this or that. We blew that out of the water. That was the aha. Now this feels right moment.
Chris SienkoHost08:31
I don't want to stay too long on past jobs, but can you talk about what your role was in terms of VP autism at work? Were you managing the folks here or was it an ERG? Or was it what was actually involved in creating this JPMorgan Chase group within a group?
Anthony PicilioGuest08:53
Part of my job was to find different areas within JPMorgan Chase that wanted to pilot programs. Once we had four individuals in there, but we were looking at what's the environment like that they're walking into, what's the noise level? Where are they going to be sitting? Who is their manager? How does that manager give feedback? Those are the things that we had to go out and bet. Then we said, well, if they're going to be in a certain department, do we need to place them separate from everybody else because of whatever noise concerns or just anxiety and gemmulation yes right
09:36
right. Of course, I think that was a large part of the job at first is putting it on its feet. It was really about relationship building within the financial firm, but it's also understanding the people that are coming in now. What it takes to sustain and retain a program like that. We started seeing cultural shifts and we had to do training and education. Part of my job which is going to translate nicely right here and segue nicely is that we had to find vendors who could supply the candidates, who could supply that education and training, supply that support, because we didn't have that initially. Cai was actually the very first vendor that we chose for JPMorgan Chase. It was extremely successful. Hence, two years later, a couple of years ago, cai came calling.
Chris SienkoHost10:43
That's great. Okay, perfect. I didn't need to do any sort of transition at all, because that's where question three goes here. Obviously, your main role and the focus of today's episode is as VP NeuroDiverse Solutions for CAI. For listeners who don't know your organization, could you walk our listeners through the day-to-day work you do as VP NeuroDiverse Solutions for CAI? Are there certain buckets of tasks that are consistent from week to week? Are there certain things that occupy most of your focus and time?
Anthony PicilioGuest11:14
Yeah, I think and I'll give you the backstory. I think our founder, tony Silvaggio. He's passionate about helping people with disabilities and neurodiversity in general. In fact, we've been a collaborative partner with several organizations for 30-plus years who benefit people with disabilities and their caretakers. Like Easter Seals Disability Inn, we have CAI Cares. When this neurodiversity program first started in 2013, the very first client was the state of Delaware, which, again, as we go back to the beginning of the question, it was Governor Markell at the time the governor of Delaware who was really the glue that brought everybody together. I think my day-to-day activities are a couple of things. I'm the brand and media ambassador. So, chris, I love you.
Chris SienkoHost12:11
You're doing your work right now.
Anthony PicilioGuest12:13
I am indeed Anything to do with the media. That is a piece of my job, whether it's writing thought leadership or doing podcasts or doing television interviews. That's part of it. The other piece that I do each and every day is I try to help companies and organizations build neurodiversity work programs. We have existing clients that haven't dabbled in it. They have a chief diversity officer, but it's race, gender, ethnicity, disability, physical, those sorts of things. Neurodiversity has been put to the side and go to the holiday theme. We're at the kids' table eaten Thanksgiving dinner and now we have a seat at the adult table. Part of my job is making sure that we stay at that table.
13:06
I also big part of my job is I'm looking at colleges and universities. I'm looking to see what they're doing with their students. Are they building a program? Do they have a program? What kind of curriculum are they establishing? Do they know what's down the path in cyber? Do they know that stock analysts are going to be the new thing or the bigger thing? We have to be able to influence that a little bit, and that's part of what I do as well. I think the personal piece to me is, again I am neurodivergent when I go to these places and I do these things. The vested interest is in making sure that there's opportunities for people who want to work, to be employed. That is, in essence, my job.
Chris SienkoHost13:55
Yes, fantastic. That puts a nice structure around everything we're going to discuss here. Thank you for walking us through that. Cii's website says they have over 40 years of excellence in uniting talent and technology. Was autism and neurodiversity and its clients part of their MO from the beginning of that 40 years? If so, can you tell us even by shared history, since you clearly haven't worked there for 40 years how CII's methods have changed and progressed to how you create solutions now? Obviously, you've worked with CII four years before you came to work here as well. How do you see this having changed in terms of perception or the way work is done, especially over a 40-year span like that? That seems like a massive change.
Anthony PicilioGuest14:39
Absolutely. I think and I referenced it a little bit in the beginning in 1982-ish, when the firm was first started, it was IT staffing doing whatever it may have been way back when there was always the passion, the empathy of making sure that the underserved, the underemployed community was always at the forefront. I talked about the whole Easter Seals and disability in, but where that starts to change and morph even more is in 2013, when they started spinning up the gears and building the sport internally so that we could do. At that time, mostly folks who were on the spectrum. Now it's huge. It's everybody who is neurodivergent. Think about it this way, chris you have a firm that's 40 years in. You're starting. You got a public sector, you got a commercial sector. Now you have CAI, neurodiverse solutions Kind of a different ball of wax than the other two sectors.
15:57
You have to ensure that you have the support built up your HR. You got to have your service delivery. You got to have your job coaches and mentors. Maybe you don't have that on the other side of your business, but in this business you need to have that. We need to make sure that our support mechanisms with our team leads and the way that we do.
16:19
It is an all-encompassing sport mechanism, not just on a daily basis for the people that are doing the work, but it extends 24 hours a day for the sheer fact that if somebody finished their day of work and they have some anxiety, we want them to be able to talk to us about what's going on. I just think and the other thing is it kind of goes back to the JPMorgan Chase there was a talent shortage as well. We had to find, in 2013, alternative pipelines to find candidates. I think and we talked to Daisaka a little bit about this that the cyberspace obviously we know it continues to grow and jobs are going to be going left and going right and all different things are going to come in. We have a ton of talent tapped and we got to find that talent, we got to bring it in and we're going to show you the different ways that people think.
Chris SienkoHost17:23
Yeah, that's fantastic. To that end, we talked about that in terms of one large bucket. I want to separate a few things out here, anthony. What are some of the variables when thinking about neurodiverse solution strategies in different portions of the tech sector? Like, for example are there specific challenges or emphases when you facilitate structures for IT roles versus cybersecurity, versus engineering, versus data analysis? Is that or is it more just like here is employment and here are the things that we help to facilitate?
Anthony PicilioGuest17:57
Yeah, I think neurodiversity in general, the pieces that make up that are things that can be sequential, or there's a finite task orientation, or there's a visual aspect, or there's pattern recognition All the things that I'm talking about right now. Don't they fold into cyber Right? Absolutely Fold into all IT, to cyber, to engineering, to data analysis, all of those things. There's a plethora of job opportunities that are waiting to be filled. We talked about SOC, we compliance analysts, identity access management, vulnerability and pen testing, incident response, like all of those things. If you took a look at somebody who is neurodivergent, those skills and aptitudes, that is what makes that whole sector a great fit for somebody who thinks differently. I think we're trying to close that cybersecurity skills gap a little bit. The world is going to gain some innovative thinkers who bring problem-solving talent to protect that critical data and that infrastructure.
Chris SienkoHost19:16
Yeah For sure. Now, do your clients also include neurodivergent professionals in leadership roles or capacities? We talked a lot about SOC analysts and incident response. That's the get your hands dirty, like you said, the pattern recognition and the deep focus and stuff like that. Do you work with leadership roles in that regard, as?
Anthony PicilioGuest19:35
well, yeah, One of the things starting way back when was we were filling all these entry level roles, and we still do. That's the crux of what we do, because we're finding individuals who are just breaking into the job market. But what we found along the way and now the statistic is one in five individuals is neurodivergent, One of the things that I mentioned. So 20 percent of the population that you're working with or working side by side is affected by whatever that may be. Yes, there's bound to be leaders in those spaces. We know that the famous ones, Elon and some other folks that are at the top but I think our job and yes, we do work with leadership, our job is to ensure that the people coming in have career pathing and mobility to get those leadership jobs.
20:33
Part of what we do is making sure that we upscale if necessary, but we're also making sure the companies that we work with they understand that we're asking them upfront please make sure you just don't have a SOC analyst one, and they can never go to SOC analyst two or three or two departments. We have to think more broadly than that. We know that leadership roles across the globe are filled by amazing human beings who are neurodivergent.
Chris SienkoHost21:08
Yes, absolutely, that makes sense. I guess I was trying to get a sense of the movement up the hill, like you said, because, especially if it's being done in a perfunctory way, there's that feeling of all right, we got one tick off the box, we got SOC analyst, but it is such an active conversation that you need to have with yourself as a company, and so to do that means to be sort of rethinking just so many different aspects of works. So, to that end, one thing I saw discussed in your post that you shared from CII was is your work to rethink the interview process in a way that doesn't shut out candidates without TISM or other neurodiverse learning and processing methods. So what's involved in rethinking the interview process?
Anthony PicilioGuest21:57
What does that look like? Yeah, so listen, traditional interviews that we've mostly seen over the past, kind of 50, 60 years. A lot of companies do that panel style interview, which we know doesn't work well for somebody who's neurodivergent. It doesn't work well for me either. So if I'm sitting across from you, chris, and five other people, and you're firing off rapid questions at me, I have a delayed processing as part of my neurodiversity, my neurodivergence, I should say, then you're going to think that either A I don't know the answer or I'm just I'm anxiety-ridden, I can't do the job. I am probably anxiety-ridden, but taking that panel away and then doing a one-on-one and not for six hours either.
22:47
You know they have these super days for internships. They are very long and exhausting. We're trying to say, like your interview should be 20 to 30 minutes tops. You should only have two or three at the most, because if you can't make that decision on the third interview, I think you don't have the right hiring managers in the room to make that decision Right. You're going to send people six interviews is not the way to go. I think the other way that we've rethought the interview process is we use a neurodiverse, friendly hiring platform. It uses gamification. We take away time constraints. You know you can do it via video or whatever way that best suits your needs. That's the way we want to do it and it's all in an effort to remove that anxiety that comes with interviewing.
Chris SienkoHost23:40
Yeah, yeah, and I think that's noteworthy. I mean, when I hear about those, I've mercifully never been in one of those six hour mega interviews with the star chamber, you know. But but yeah, on one hand you can see that it's like they're so desperate to make sure that we don't make a mistake and so we're just going to keep you know, we're going to save our investment by like making absolutely sure that. You know. It's almost like an interrogation process. They figure out at hour five you'll crack and then they can. They can let you go in papers, but of course we've seen the.
24:15
You know the consequences of this is that you're getting less and less qualified people coming through and more and more of these are just left, left dangling. So that's that's very encouraging to hear as well. But yeah, so what is? Have you seen like a difficult path in getting this new process adopted by companies? I mean, obviously you're working with companies that want to work with you, but is it, is this the sort of thing where that you, you, you roll this out and they go? Oh, that's, that seems a little too easy here. Something like that, do you?
Anthony PicilioGuest24:45
get that. Well, I think what we hear is that they feel that there's a risk associated with changing the way that they do these processes, from from interviewing, tiring to on boarding. Right, we, as a service provider, are coming in and taking that risk out because we're gonna do everything for them on the front end. We're teaching them how to fish, chris, but initially we got to show them the ways of the world, right. So we were talking about, you know, you know the Hiring platform that is neurodiverse friendly, but, like we do some other things, right, we have a talent discovery session and that uses that replaces more of the traditional interview process. So it's a hands-on evaluation that allows the candidates to feel more comfortable Showing their talents in a supportive environment, because we have folks there who are job coaches and mentors. We're kind of going through a day in the life, right, if we're in cyber and it's again you know One of the positions in there an incident response Job, we're gonna be teaching them. Okay, this is what it's gonna look like. I know you might have went to school for that, or you may have not have went to school for that, but you have skills that are transferable, yes, and this may be a great job for you, and this is what we're gonna do over the next few days.
26:09
Now, adoption is what you were talking about from those companies, right? Mm-hmm, it is Again a little bit of the risk, but they're now starting to sense and see that missing a whole Whole community of people and and, as you said, you're missing out on some skilled labor that you should have been hiring in the first place. So the changes are coming. Not as fast, chris, as we all want, I think it's. It's harder for larger organizations to change that culture and make that switch a little bit easier for the mid-sized and smaller companies to do that, but we need to make the case every time right. Still, a little bit of stigma. You know that. That risk, as I talked about, but I think we're we're moving the needle a little bit. I wish it would go a lot quicker, right? I shouldn't, chris. I shouldn't have this job right. It should be built into the DNA of what companies do day-to-day up. But until that day, here I am here we are.
Chris SienkoHost27:09
yeah, I know I was gonna say I Wonder which is gonna be harder to sort of make hiring departments let go of the idea of how to do An interview a certain way, or the idea that you need to have a college degree for us to even consider you. Just, that was previously the one, and now that I know about this, I'm like okay, now it's a, it's a, it's a neck and neck right is between all things that don't work that also are they're going to hold on to for dear life well, you know that that's funny.
Anthony PicilioGuest27:37
You should mention that because? But you look at job descriptions and and you know it says need excellent verbal and communication skills. Some of the jobs almost don't require a daily back and forth between anybody. Yeah, somebody is on the spectrum and they're very literal, they're taking that. They're not even applying for the job.
Chris SienkoHost27:58
Yes, exactly.
Anthony PicilioGuest27:59
You need to go back in and relook at some of the ways that we do stuff.
Chris SienkoHost28:03
Yeah, and I mean, I think there's even Ways to retool a phrase like excellent verbal and written communication skills, that doesn't look like such a binary on-off. Like you, yeah, you either have it or you don't. You know, like, and explaining a little bit more about like what, what aspects of that, you know, can you be sociable? Can you not be sociable? Can you? You know, if someone asks you a question, you know, is it gonna be a problem for the whole day, you know, or whatever. Like you know, and and I you know, I think that I think there's there's so much nuance that can be in there.
28:36
And I think you're right because I mean, we talked all the time about how you know women applying for jobs will not apply unless they're 80% of you know, you know they, they, they, they don't feel comfortable, like just going for it if they only have like 40% of the qualifications, whereas a lot of guys will will just go like hey, you know, no is free, or whatever. And so I think this is probably an equivalent version of that here as well, where you're you're seeing it as this sort of on-off switch. Well, if I, you know, I can't write a full report every day to my supervisor, then this is probably not the job for me. But you know we're talking about like a very non-transparent, you know, membrane between Potential employer and company. So they don't know what your culture looks like either. You don't know what they're like looking like coming in. But you know, maybe maybe they do require you gotta meet at the bar every day at 530 and talk about what you did, you know and stuff.
29:29
So I know I'm so using using those kind of generic words like that, I think is is equally sort of deleterious in the other direction, in terms of like showing what you're like, you know it's one thing to say we're a fun company, or you know, you know we have a great culture or whatever you know, but that that can mean a lot of things, and and having a great culture can sometimes mean which you are required to take part.
Anthony PicilioGuest29:53
Yeah, right, right, and I think you know having those, those required pieces are they 100% required or can we go a different avenue? And I think, if you embed some of the processes that we're talking about today, by the end of Having that all put together, you're gonna have an employee who's extremely loyal, productive and they know that they have the support that's gonna help them within their career, right? So the, the ROI, the return on investment, company-wise, is profitability right, we just go with this. Yeah, return an investment for the individual is a newfound sense of responsibility in confidence, and maybe they're, you know, going to get their driver's license or Something to that effect, something that they weren't doing before. Now, put that back to the company. The ROI is having a culture that is now shifting in a more empathetic way.
Chris SienkoHost30:56
Yeah, yeah, and which is enormous. So you know we were talking about. You know companies that you know might have some friction around these ideas or resisting it, but without you know, necessarily using names for security reasons. Can you give me some examples of past clients who you're especially proud of, the methods you used to help them find their roles, or or who Were especially like enthusiastic and and did things and and saw like measurable results? Can you give me some sort of yeah.
Anthony PicilioGuest31:25
Yeah, and I can. I can talk about one in particular and actually name that the University of Pittsburgh. You know we came in and we automated 83% of their Salesforce testing with CAI, neurodiverse solutions. Right, there's on our website, caiio. You know you can find the press release and success story and you can find a whole bunch more, but you know they're finding the Pittsburgh piece. You know the QAPs, the test efficiency and the testing times went down from Days to hours. I mean that's what automation is about. You know they created 150, created more than 150 tests that are run and reviewed daily and as a result that the University that is the whole 83% of automating and reducing the processing time like that's huge.
32:24
I mean we're in the financial sector, we're in the light manufacturing, manufacturing easy for me to say manufacturing sector. We're in the legal sector, so we're hitting Everything in. In each one of those verticals we have success stories, right. So, from from a mom In the hell. You know, in the healthcare industry especially, there was a gentleman who his mom and a sister Really never thought that there was gonna be anything for him in a work aspect, mm-hmm, just because. And then we showed that we can take that young man and say hey, listen, what if you can do this, this, this and this? Well, you know what, chris? We got a job for you, that a healthcare company. You can do that in here super successful.
Chris SienkoHost33:15
Well, let's, let's sort of talk to them from there about sort of Good fits and things. We, we, we walk past it a little bit earlier, but to go a little deeper, can you talk about some areas of the cybersecurity industry specifically that are ideally suited to neurodivergent candidates?
Anthony PicilioGuest33:31
Or, you know, if we can sort of like break down some of the job roles and what you've seen is an especially good match for yeah, and I think you know we talked about the compliance, the sock, the incident response, those jobs that are very detail oriented, mm-hmm, I think lend well, we talked a little bit about pattern recognition, you know, and one of my colleagues, rex, you know who I think you met at the Rex too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, he is like a wealth. Of this is why we need to be doing this right. So he runs down strong concentration, problem-solving abilities, high work standards in the ethic, memorizing and learning information quickly, visual process thinkers, bringing new approaches to that, like all of those things I think you could take to any cyber job. Yeah, why them right?
Chris SienkoHost34:31
right right.
Anthony PicilioGuest34:32
Chris, I get that there's different levels of what you can and cannot do, and, yeah, we get that. But we shouldn't pigeonhole to say that you can only do these five jobs in cyber. Yes, exactly right, and I think, as you're probably a little bit more close to it, jobs are evolving. New titles are coming, a new you know way of doing something, or a new coding mechanism or a new way to Bring data together, like that's coming and that's going to be a different job, and you know what people like us CAI neurodiverse solutions. We need to be on the cutting edge of that so that we can help you Figure out where that tail is going to come from.
Chris SienkoHost35:11
Yeah, I mean, do you sort of keep? Do you have sort of parts of your company that keep their ear to the ground in terms of those types of job roles I assume you would have to right.
Anthony PicilioGuest35:21
We do because we are on the other side of it, is all technology right. So we do have a cyber piece to us, we have the help desk piece, we have all of those pieces. Anything in technology we pretty much do. So what has to happen is we have to talk internally. So maybe we're not seeing something on CAI and your adverse side, but in the public sector they're like oh my god, this is the newest thing and people are going to be clamoring for this. So we need to start putting some training modules together for whatever it is You're like, yes, and then it just it really dovetails together nicely.
Chris SienkoHost36:04
Cool, okay, excellent. So recently I interviewed Ian Campbell from Domain Tools, who also runs a neurodivergent ERG for his company, and he gave me a quote that kind of blew my mind and I want to read to you. It's from a Rand Corporation study about national security roles and it was a sentiment that was echoed after it was said by a federal hiring manager when they spoke to you, and it's the quote was these missions are too important and too critical to be left to people who only think in typical ways. So I was like so what are your thoughts on this, giving your close proximity and working relationships with cyber firms and job roles? Do you see examples of such forward thinking about autism and neurodiversity in other places and what do you think of that sentiment?
Anthony PicilioGuest36:50
Yeah Well, let's break it down a little bit. Autism is one piece of neurodiversity, right, so they're not separate things, which is absolutely fine, right, but we do need to know that there is the typical way of going about. Things is not going to last long, right, it may last for a year or something like that, but then some new piece of thinking needs to kind of pop in, to kind of, I don't know, kick the tires or throw a monkey wrench in it, so to speak. We had a financial institution who had ATMs that were off by a 001 penny, right?
37:35
They couldn't figure it out, couldn't reconcile, tried to figure out the programming for quite a long time and we put a team in there and one neurodivergent associate came in and identified a different way to look and solve that problem within the first month, save the company millions of dollars in the first six months of implementation. So that's a perfect example of how different ways of thinking and methodologies reduce error and increase profitability. So I think Ian Campbell is right on. It is too important and too critical, right? So if you're going to cost me, my stock is at $22 and I couldn't get my revenue to where it needed to be because now I had a $5 million gap. Well geez, I would have fixed that for you, right, yeah, right, right. That's why it all comes back to the circle.
Chris SienkoHost38:26
Yeah, it does. And yeah, and I think that's another thing that we talk about here all the time and have been talking about even before neurodiverse topics have come in is that just we need everybody working on this, because these problems are not just it's not a sort of like a pre-built kit, it's not like a hint book for a video game. There might be completely unusual solutions to problems that you're not going to get, whether you are physically disabled or have physical disability or a neurodiverse, or just have a different economic background or a different from other parts of the world and stuff like that. And so I think it's just always worth reminding that this is a very large playing field that we're working on and it doesn't necessarily have conventional solutions the way that you would think in terms of like a mousetrap or a Goldberg puzzle or something like that.
39:28
We're going to have to figure out things by thinking very, very, very laterally, and so I think that's again why getting as many different brains and hearts and minds into the conversation is going to be so special.
Anthony PicilioGuest39:42
No, I agree a thousand percent with you. I mean, you and I could talk for about six hours about the subject and go back and forth and talk about all the nuances that make up why we need to be doing this in more spaces than what we are currently.
Chris SienkoHost39:59
Yeah, absolutely so. Although your role is facilitating neurodivergent candidates into job roles that suit their strengths, do you have any advice or tips for neurodivergent learners or learners with autism or other spectrum things who are either picking their area of study based on their strengths and capacities? So we said, as you said, there's these different buckets, and it's like, well, this is perfect, this is perfect, like that might still feel weird. Do you like work with candidates who are still in the focused learning phase of their career and sort of trying to figure what they want to do with themselves?
Anthony PicilioGuest40:33
Yeah, so, like I said, I have the coolest job so I can go to the colleges and universities and do all those other things and meet people. And the first thing I say is find your passion. So you're going to school for X. What is it about X that you love to do? Okay, you don't love to do it? Well, maybe you should let's veer to the right or to the left a little bit Find what you do best. Right, passion is one thing, what you do best is a completely different thing, and that's actually a part of our assessment process as well. What are their cognitive and behavioral skills that align with what they like to do?
41:21
We talked about transferable skills. Talk about the cyber industry. I don't know if an incident response person can go to a sock. An analyst can go to a compliance analyst. An analyst can go to access and identity management, but there's got to be some little pieces of that that can kind of intertwine. That's what we're trying to draw out of these individuals. Here's what happens a lot. They do have a passion and then parent, caregiver, guardian is kind of moving them where they think that their function should be, and then we're seeing that the young adults and adults are like it wasn't really what I wanted to do, but it was thought that it would be best that I go this right Based on past performance.
Chris SienkoHost42:15
this is what my family agreed would be best for me. Yeah, right.
Anthony PicilioGuest42:20
And think about it this way A lot of our candidates are either recent grads or it's the first employment opportunity, or they're right out of high school with certifications. We talked about that not having that degree. Education is great though I'm not saying that you shouldn't get your degree but it's not for everybody. If they want to continue that education process, if they feel the need, please do it. We're going to let you know what you potentially need to upskill as we go through the process and we're going to say what you need to do to get to that next step. So when you have that completed, we got the role for you, so keep the machine of learning moving.
Chris SienkoHost43:03
Yes, yeah, oh, that's superb. I'm going to get that engraved into a decorative plate and I keep the machine of learning rolling. So another thing that the aforementioned Ian Campbell said that really stuck with me was that in working with accommodating neurodivergent professionals he stressed that quote there is discomfort in the process and the discomfort will have to be a two-way street for a while. So he was talking about that. Yes, companies are going to have to find new ways to accommodate and there's also going to be a certain level of like. This is not going to. No matter how accommodating things are going to be, it's still going to be uncomfortable. So for people with certain learning and working methods, even the ideally lit slash volume, modulated slash time accommodating schedule can get chaotic fast. So what advice do you have for newly placed professionals to make sure that they are also doing the due diligence they need to do to keep growing and developing in ways that are beneficial for the company as well as for them?
Anthony PicilioGuest44:04
Yeah, so I think it's all about the support that we're going to get. Right, so, a two-way street kind of discomfort. Right, we're teaching the client what to do. We have a pretty well-oiled machine on support because we have team leads and the job coaches and the mentors and they're there to support the advocacy of them looking to grow and develop. Right, the growing develop can be internally or it could be the next level of their job, right From, you know, analyst one, analyst two and analyst three. What are those skill sets that you need? Great, great, great. But you also have to look at the internal piece to that person. And we're very upfront with clients.
44:50
Right, the discomfort, you know. If you want us to fill that role, we do want that opportunity for them to have the career path of mobility as we talked about earlier. A lot of folks don't want to be stuck in that one role. But there are folks Chris perfectly acceptable to stay in the current job that they got and that is absolutely fine and the company needs to be fine with that as well. Right, right, right, you know, and I think giving those growth opportunities is one thing, but in order to give them growth opportunities, you've got to give them feedback, you know, either on the spot or in a cadence, you know, so that they can do their job well and continue to develop. That's the discomfort, right.
45:40
If you're a hiring manager or you're the manager of individuals and you're like I don't know where Chris or Anthony should go, or Sally or Michelle, that manager is the impetus for that person to either move on and succeed or to be stagnant in that role. And I would hope the vetting process, the discomfort of vetting a manager, is the most important piece because you need to know does their team currently you know respect and accept their feedback? Do they get the feedback In a timely fashion? Meaning, you know, is it every week, every month, whatever it is Like? That's a huge role and I think people have, especially managers have, kind of, you know, sat back all right, performance review, got this all right, check off the box, do this each day. Now is the time you got to kind of be engaged.
Chris SienkoHost46:35
Yeah, yeah, I think that's a great point. And to sort of circle back to what you said there, some people want to keep moving up in the company, want to take on more responsibilities, other people want to keep doing the thing, but there's there's still, as you said, as opposed to the sort of stagnancy of it, there's a difference between I want to keep doing my same role versus I want to be doing the exact same job responsibilities, like it's still very possible to keep your one sort of like plateau or spot in the company and still find other ways to make it more fulfilling or greater than it was before.
47:12
You know, greater in the sense of larger, you know that you know and again that just requires a little extra effort on the manager's part, on hiring's part, to understand like we, okay, well, here's, here's a path that we haven't necessarily seen before. So we, you stay here, but you also take on these other things that make your job, you know, more satisfying or more productive or whatever.
Anthony PicilioGuest47:36
But the the add-on to that, chris, is senior leadership has to have that buy-in too, right? Absolutely so. As managers give the feedback up the food chain, senior leaders got to recognize all right. So we just realized that three of our folks are great at this and you know they're making a thousand widgets a day doing this, but the manager's telling that there's another opportunity over here to do something completely different with that widget. You got to say okay, well, let's, let's. Senior leaders got to say well, we should try that job function. Maybe that person who is doing that widget today could transfer over there, because they already know the process of the product. Yeah, we, we, we got to get to that level of acceptance.
Chris SienkoHost48:19
Yeah, and yeah, I think there's. I think there's something to that as well. If, if someone says, do you want to move up to this next thing? And you say, no, I just want to keep doing this, that doesn't mean that I can't.
Anthony PicilioGuest48:30
We might can ask you again in a year we have this other thing, maybe this is more suited to you and they say yes you know, yeah, I absolutely agree, and I don't think that there, you know, a lot of the times you'll hear that you know repercussions, because you know Tammy didn't want to move, I didn't take the.
Chris SienkoHost48:48
I didn't take the breast ring. Yeah, Right, yeah.
Anthony PicilioGuest48:50
You know what? First of all, that's Tammy's decision. Is she doing a bang up job in that? That position Is she hit her goal and her productivity is awesome, and she's finding these defects and making resolution. Okay.
Chris SienkoHost49:04
What's the issue? Yeah, right, right, yeah, exactly so I mean, yeah, as you said, we could talk for six hours about the sort of nuances of all this, but I want to. I want to get you on your way here. So, as we wrap up today, are there any initiatives or new programs or special events CAI as part of in the coming months that you'd like our listeners to know more about?
Anthony PicilioGuest49:23
Yeah, no, absolutely. We continue to get asked to do these types of media engagements. That's our opportunity to spread awareness and promote acceptance of neurodiversity in the workplace. I have a few more speaking engagements through the end of the year National Association of Counties, a Tech Titans panel but again, you know, at the end of the day, my job is to make sure that I'm engaging the entire community across the United States and, you know, even across the globe. We strive to be that person first, organization, and we're always going to do the right thing that will benefit that individual. And then, like I said, you know, the major conferences and disability in. There's 4,500 people that go to that and it's absolutely outstanding. So if you ever get the opportunity to go, it's in Vegas this year. It's quite quite the scene.
Chris SienkoHost50:21
Awesome. Good to know. I'm going to put that on my calendar. So one final question if our listeners want to learn more about you and Anthony Piccilio, or CAI and neurodiverse solutions, where should they look online?
Anthony PicilioGuest50:31
Yeah, definitely have the LinkedIn right, you know, anthony Piccilio. And then you can also go to CAIio and then you'll be able to see our neurodiverse solutions kind of drop down, and then there you'll find all the success stories of videos and all that good stuff that comes along with CAI neurodiverse solutions, sweet.
Chris SienkoHost50:52
All right, well, anthony, thanks so much for your time and insights today. I know our listeners will be very excited about what they heard and I hope they can apply it to their careers. So thank you Absolutely. Thanks so much, chris. I appreciate your time. My pleasure so, and thank you, as always, to our cyber work listeners and video viewers. Whether this is your first episode or you've been with us since the very beginning, we're grateful to have you along for the journey.
51:12
So, before I go, I hope you'll remember to visit infosecinstitutecom slash free to get a whole bunch of free and inclusive stuff for cyber work listeners. So we start off with our boot camp promo offer from now until December 31st 2023. By the time this drops, that'll be very close. If you book a boot camp with Infosec, you'll get $500 off the purchase price, no promo needed. Just go to infosecinstitutecom slash free and browse the available boot camps. There's also our new security awareness training series, work bites, which is awesome, and I encourage you all to watch the trailer. Infosecinstitutecom slash free is also the place to go for your cyber security talent development ebook, which is free Now, where you will find our in depth training plans for the 12 most common security roles, some of which we talked about today, including stock analyst, penetration tester, cloud security engineer, information risk analyst, privacy manager, secure coder and more.
52:00
One more time Infosecinstitutecom. Slash free. And yes, as always, the link will be in the description below. Thank you once again to Anthony Picillio and Picilli. I keep doing it. Is it Picillio, picillio, picillio, picillio. Thanks once again to Anthony Picillio and CAI, and thank you all so much for watching and listening and, by the time this drops, I hope you'll have a happy holidays and a happy new year and we will speak to you in the new year and until then, happy learning.
Subscribe to podcast
How does your salary stack up?
Ever wonder how much a career in cybersecurity pays? We crunched the numbers for the most popular roles and certifications. Download the 2024 Cybersecurity Salary Guide to learn more.
Weekly career advice
Learn how to break into cybersecurity, build new skills and move up the career ladder. Each week on the Cyber Work Podcast, host Chris Sienko sits down with thought leaders from Booz Allen Hamilton, CompTIA, Google, IBM, Veracode and others to discuss the latest cybersecurity workforce trends.
Q&As with industry pros
Have a question about your cybersecurity career? Join our special Cyber Work Live episodes for a Q&A with industry leaders. Get your career questions answered, connect with other industry professionals and take your career to the next level.
Level up your skills
Hack your way to success with career tips from cybersecurity experts. Get concise, actionable advice in each episode — from acing your first certification exam to building a world-class enterprise cybersecurity culture.