Security week;

The ‘Serve for America’ initiative, announced by National Cyber Director Harry Coker, removes the four-year degree requirement in federal IT contracts and will push agencies to hire based on experience, certifications, and aptitude tests. 

“Our nation has a critical need for cyber talent. Today, there are approximately 500,000 – half a million! – open cyber jobs in the United States and that number is only going to grow as more services and products go online with the expansion of technologies like artificial intelligence,” Coker said in a note announcing the initiative.

“We are working to remove unnecessary degree requirements, moving toward a skills-based approach that emphasizes candidates’ ability to perform a job, rather than where they acquired their skills,” he added.