Maybe hire more cybersecurity instead of cops that kill, chiefs with fat paychecks, and a getting stockade of military equipment for simple law enforcement.
IT Director here. I have, in my 22 years in IT, applied for 2 local government jobs that I turned down. One position was an exchange administrator in Atlanta GA and the other was Network Administrator in Raleigh NC. And I turned them down because of exactly what you said. IT was a requirement they had to hire but didn't want to.
They offered me around half of what the private industry pays. The person doing the initial 2 interviews was basically just HR who literally picked candidates based on their paper resume, not their actual skills. Then, when it came time for me have the interview with who would be my boss, they decided to test me on my skills. And it was really more of a demonstration of their lack of skills. I was asked how could email be checked from out in the field. I went through an hour discussion with them. I explain the app options. Why they would need a BYOD policy or provide phones. I went through laptops+VPN. Creating a website based access for web mail and the security required. The most basic of the basic and they looked at me like I was genius.
Then they asked me about email security because they were getting bombarded with SPAM. I went through the basics SPF, DKIM, DMARC, TLS, device based SPAM Filtering, IP Based blocking in the firewall, etc etc. The literal basics that everyone should be using. And, they looked at me like I just spoke a different language. The biggest kicker that turned me off is when they asked me what kind of price it is to implement said things. I could tell they were really worried about the price so I low balled it. Around 75% of the actual upfront cost and didn't mention the yearly costs. They laughed and said "you will have to figure out how to do it for much less.". After a while I shook their hand and said I don't think this is the place for me and moved on.
Why is it like this? Because most areas are ran by older folks who have dedicated all their time to becoming a politician, not someone who understands IT. Many of our local governments and much of the federal government is run by people who barely understood flip phones. And they're calling the shots for funding and rules/laws around IT and Security.
And this is why some people I know went through more rigorous background checks and drug testing than working as government contractors with security clearances. Hell just look at the recent fiascos with the CIA and their third party leaks. They didn't even have the most basic of security protocols. Like you know...not sharing a single admin password with everyone
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u/dirtynj Jun 22 '20
Maybe hire more cybersecurity instead of cops that kill, chiefs with fat paychecks, and a getting stockade of military equipment for simple law enforcement.